Drift
by CSIGurlie07
Summary: Three years after a devastating loss at the San Diego Shatterdome, a new pilot is recruited to help get a special Jaeger back in the fight. Sam/Jack Pacific Rim AU. Need I say more? I hope not, because it's been a while and summaries are hard. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

_A/N 1: Before you ask, yes I'm still working on Stars. This one just happened to happen first, and is WAY shorter than the next installment of the Stars series. This fic is mostly done; I'm just putting the finishing touches on it. It was burning a hole in my hard drive and it's the holidays, so..._

 _Merry Christmas, nerds._

 _A/N 2: This fic is set within the verse of the Pacific Rim film by Guillermo del Toro. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, both for the full enjoyment of this story, and just on principle._

 _Trigger warnings: This story will deal with some heavy, topical issues. Trigger warnings will be listed on individual chapters as necessary, and safe summaries will be listed at the start of the following update for those who choose skip._

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

Jack O'Neill staggered back in his harness and paused, panting heavily as his instruments normalized. In his visual display, Kaiju-codenamed-Alpha bellowed in triumph before charging again. The beast hit like a 200 ton hammer, and Jack's Jaeger _Sensei_ could barely weather the storm. Jack straightened back into a fighting stance. After a slight lag in response, Sensei obeyed. _Not good._ Jack tapped an inquiry into his keypad, and numbers blinked into his heads-up display in response. Synaptic fibers were partially shorn, limiting Sensei's response time. He needed to end the fight, and quickly. Almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Jack's main weapons array went offline. Alpha roared a challenge, pounding the ground a clawed fist as Jack's instruments panel droned an ominous flatline. Quickly, he rerouted power to Sensei's shoulder mounted rail guns, which promptly declined to respond, joining its brethren on the red light brigade. Jack sighed. _Fine._

Alpha charged. Jack shifted his stance to receive him. When Alpha slammed into him, Jack carried the momentum up and over his shoulder, rolling to redirect the kaiju's movement past him. He'd hoped to cast the beast aside and give himself room to regroup, but Alpha snagged him with half a dozen claws hooked under the edge of his breastplate. Jack rotated Sensei on top of the grapple, clamping one gauntleted hand under Alpha's chin and pulling to expose the pulsing flesh beneath. Tendons bunched and twisted as Alpha thrashed, snarling as it tried to work its hind legs up to push Sensei away, but JAck didn't budge. He engaged Sensei's elbow rockets and drove the mechanized fist into the beast's throat. Alpha's snarls stuttered under the blow, but it didn't breach the tough hide. Claws raked Sensei's back, scraping fire down Jack's spine as his drive suit carried the impulses to his skin.

Jack shut out the pain, struggling to keep his hold on the kaiju's jaw. His eyes caught on his own gauntlet, and froze. The Jaeger's wrist metalworks were shielded by greaves that extended part of the way across the back of Sensei's hand, and then tapered to a severe point. When the idea struck, Jack didn't hesitate. He lifted his right hand, and Sensei mirrored the action. He pronated Sensei's wrist to expose the point of the wrist gauntlet and on the next blow, buried the point in Alpha's neck, eliciting a scream of anguish from the beast. Jack struck again and again, slowly working his way towards the creature's windpipe. He hit an artery first. Kaiju blue spattered Sensei's vid screen, blinding him just as Alpha thrashed desperately. Jack tightened Sensei's hold and held his breath. Untold heartbeats later, Alpha finally fell still.

"Congratulations, Ranger O'Neill," a mechanical female voice greeted brightly, as the simulator shut down. "This is your 100th simulated kill. A new Academy record."

Overhead lights flipped on, nearly blinding Jack after so long in the darkened simulation chamber. The harness released him, setting him down on his own two feet. "It's not a record when you're here longer than any other recruit, Simms," Jack reminded her. He removed his helmet, and inhaled deeply when cool air met his sweat-slicked skin. "Don't change the leaderboard."

The pilot interface was the only genuine component of the sim-room. Elliptical machines provided the resistance of a Jaeger's machinery, and the drive suit functioned in real time. The only difference was that the Jaeger and Kaiju were computer generated, rendered from composite data from all the kaiju who had climbed through the Breach to date. Almost twenty years since the Breach first opened, Simms had more than enough footage to mine for inspiration.

"Affirmative," Simms responded politely. As the AI who designed the simulated fights, Simms was also in charge of student standings at the Academy. Sometimes she listened. Sometimes she did whatever the hell she wanted. Jack supposed it didn't matter much either way; with all the other students already transferred out, there was no one else to call foul.

"And what the hell happened to my weapons systems?" Jack accused. "Did you really have to kill both of them?"

"You displayed a certain complacency in recent simulations, Ranger O'Neill. Your performance is more intriguing when you are required to improvise."

Jack snorted. He snatched his waiting towel from the prep-bench and scrubbed it over his face, removing the worst of the salt. "Good to know you're as bored as I am, Simms." He headed for the hatch-and a hot shower- but paused before leaving the sim room. "Thanks, though. That was a good drop. I needed it."

"As I predicted when you arrived ahead of schedule," Simms replied drily. Jack chuckled, heading for the door. "O'Neill, there appears to be a Marshal Pentecost waiting for you." The door opened to reveal the Marshal himself before Simms could finish her sentence. Jack snapped to attention and saluted crisply. The Marshal gave him a scan of approval and released him swiftly.

"Ranger O'Neill, that was an impressive run."

Jack swallowed; either Simms had been playing a digital re-enactment of the fight to an empty hall when the Marshal arrived, or Pentecost had deliberately called up the display- which Simms would have known. He barely caught himself from glaring behind him into the empty sim-chamber.

"Thank you, sir," Jack fired off. Then, "You should see what I can do with fully operational systems, sir."

Pentecost smirked. "I doubt it would have been quite as interesting." He paused, then beckoned for Jack to follow him. "Come with me."

"Yes, sir." Jack paused, lingering just long enough for the Marshal to stride out of earshot before turning back to the sim-chamber. "See you tomorrow, Simms."

"I'm afraid that is unlikely," Simms replied. "Good luck, Ranger O'Neill."

The doors closed on the sim-chamber, leaving Jack to trot after the Marshal to catch up. Pentecost led him through painted cinderblock halls to the East Wing. The East Wing was all administration and muckety-mucks, but both the administration and mucks were long gone onto greener pastures. The Marshal entered one of a half-dozen empty offices in Corridor C, and Jack dutifully stepped in behind him. As if mourning the lack of personnel, the walls were painted a matte gray that sucked what little personality was left in the form of motivational and recruitment photos. When Pentecost settled behind the desk, his presence filled the room like he owned the place.

"Have a seat, Ranger," instructed the Marshal. Jack obeyed wordlessly. The drivesuit made sitting uncomfortable; it was designed for movement in a Jaeger, and pinched in inappropriate places when forced into anything more sedentary. He recognized his service record in front of the Marshal as he settled into the uncomfortable visitor's chair. "Ranger O'Neill, your record since joining the Academy six years ago has been exemplary."

"Yes, sir." Jack didn't bother with false modesty anymore. There was none to be had when he'd been at the Academy twice as long as anyone else. At this point, he'd been around longer than some of the instructors, the few that were left.

"The only area you've got a less than perfect score seems to be drift compatibility- you've tested against every recruit to pass through the Academy for four years, and none of them proved to be compatible."

"Many of them were compatible, sir," Jack replied. "Just not with me."

Pentecost revealed a hint of a smile. "As it were." He folded his hands. "The Academy hasn't seen a new recruit in 16 months. Current recruits unable to graduate accepted transfers to other commands. You did not. Why is that?"

"This place has been my home for the past three years, sir."

"You and I both know that is not an acceptable answer, Ranger. Care to try to again?" the Marshal asked.

Jack froze. For a dangerous second he had forgotten who he'd been speaking to. Pentecost wasn't one of the Academy instructors- many of whom Jack outmatched in tenure. Haunting the halls of a defunct training facility had almost made him forget what it was to speak to a superior. Jack straightened in his seat, squaring his shoulders.

"Sir, I tested against almost a hundred candidates, and couldn't find compatibility with any of them. If I leave the Academy, I may never see a Jaeger again; if this is the closest I'll ever come to piloting one, then I'm going to stay as long as I can."

A long silence followed as Pentecost weighed his answer. Jack waited for the inevitable reprimand for being a sentimental fool. As much as he tried to make himself useful around the building, he was superfluous. He should have moved on years ago, but the command had been as desperate to pair him as he'd been to be paired, and they'd held him back again and again. He waited so long, he forgot how to do anything else.

"I have a pilot in a similar situation," Pentecost revealed finally, far from the rebuke Jack anticipated. "High ability, low compatibility. We have a Jaeger waiting, we just need a pair of pilots able to move her." Jack's heart climbed into his throat and lodged there.

"You think I'll be compatible?"

"From what I've seen, I'd say there's a significant chance. But," the Marshal warned, "in order to leave here, you have to graduate. You graduate, you don't come back." Pentecost leveled a solemn look. "Out there, there is no perfect score. If you leave here you may never find the drift. There's no guarantee you'll find it here, either."

Jack hesitated, recalling Simms' parting words. "It's my decision?"

"Of course," came the droll response. "I have no room for pilots who don't want to be there." He met Jack's gaze squarely. "But I'm fairly certain what your decision will be."

Apparently, Simms was equally sure and Jack couldn't fault either of them for their assumption. His waiting was done. "Yes, sir. How soon can we leave?"

"There's a helo waiting. You have 30 minutes to grab your gear and meet me on the tarmac for liftoff."

Jack was changed into his BDUs and on the tarmac with his sea bag with twenty minutes to spare.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Trigger Warnings:** None_

* * *

Upon takeoff, the Marshal immediately made himself busy. His slim briefcase held more files than Jack would have guessed possible, and when the Marshal's attention was consumed by the paperwork, Jack surreptitiously pulled out his notes from the few PPDC history lectures he'd sat through. With the short notebook hidden behind the sea bag propped on his knees and his chin tucked to read the tight scribbles of his own handwriting, anyone observing would think him asleep. The flight in all took almost eight hours, and by the time Jack could just glimpse the first glint of the San Diego Shatterdome on the horizon, he knew that the original base had been donated by the US Navy back in 2015, just two years after Trespasser hit San Francisco, and 1 year after the Jaeger Program's inception. He'd memorized the first Jaegers stationed there (Shima Tornado & Nightwraith Toro), and the Shatterdome's kill count at the time he sat the lecture over a year ago (21 kaiju). It was the second highest Shatterdome kill rate, right after Hong Kong.

The knowledge of its history eased some of the apprehension that had coiled around the base of this spine, keeping him rigid with nerves. As they neared, the base came into clearer view. The buildings originally donated by the Navy sat clustered at the heart of the Shatterdome. Only a few of them remained, hosting guest quarters and command offices. The real action was in the structures built later on what was once field training grounds, which now held K-Sciences and the kwoon, and the six turrets jutting out over the edge of the rocky coastline.

Each turret was the home of a Jaeger. Auxiliary bays were deeper inside the 'dome as well, but these were the frontline machines, the ones most likely to be called into service. The bays could open out directly into the surf, and the roof of each could be opened for carriers to throw down lines for a vertical lift. The hatches were open now as they circled, waiting for clearance to set down. Light spilled into the bays, giving Jack glittering flashes of shine reflecting off the metal Jaegers housed within.

More than two dozen bodies moved swiftly across the landing platforms, pulling Jack's attention in as many different directions. Pallet loaders buzzed across the tarmac, stacking crates of gear with practiced ease, following painting lanes of traffic sprayed on the tarmac. Technicians in neon vests moved with deliberate purpose, some with the lighted batons of the landing crew, and still more refueling and inspecting another chopper already set down.

But perhaps the most breathtaking was the ocean glinting beyond the outer edge of the Shatterdome. In the mid-afternoon sun, the water glowed azure, twinkling like glass. In Anchorage, the ocean was a force of nature, icy cold with the threat of monsters in the deep. Looking at the Pacific now, it was hard to believe anything so monstrous could be lurking beneath the surface. Jack couldn't help but stare, captivating by the stunning vista. On their next pass, he realized he wasn't the only one enraptured.

At the far corner of the roof, a tall figure stood with their back to the organized chaos, staring out across the calm ocean. From the helicopter, Jack couldn't see much beyond the cut of their silhouette in the sun. Still, his eyes bounced between the ocean and the lone figure until the chopper banked suddenly, coming in for the final approach. The indistinct silhouette sharpened into blonde hair ruffling in the breeze, and casual BDUs that didn't match the ground crews utilitarian coveralls. Their head turned to track their descent, eyes hidden behind mirrored shades. Jack watched them in turn until the chopper set down, and the person disappeared behind the invading crush of the ground crew moving in.

When they finally touched down, the Marshal wasted no time in exiting the helo. As soon as the door hinged open, Pentecost was out the hatch and striding purposefully across the tarmac, leaving Jack to scramble for his gear and trot to catch up. A quick glance to where he'd last seen the figure revealed nothing but open space. Half a second later, he realized that the figure had resolved itself into the shape of the woman waiting for the Marshal near the freight elevator with a clipboard tucked under her arm.

Though her eyes were hidden by a pair of mirrored aviators, Jack sensed the sharp gaze behind them and fought the urge to squirm when she looked at him. A stiff gust of air buffeted them when the helicopter lifted off, sustained by the otherwise gentle breeze blowing off the waves. Jack watched the woman straighten as the Marshal approached ahead of him, but noticed with a curious eye that she didn't salute.

"Welcome back, sir," she greeted solemnly. Pentecost traded his briefcase for the clipboard she held, and nodded in response. "General Hammond arrived 45 minutes ago."

"Of course he did," Pentecost responded, lifting the first few pages of the clipped packet to scan its contents. Jack saw only numbers in strings before the Marshal decided he was done with it, and returned it to his assistant. Secretary? Jack's thoughts spooled out behind him, trying to decipher exactly who this woman was. "I'm surprised you aren't with the General now."

The woman didn't skip a beat. "The General accepted Tendo's offer of an insider's tour of the Shatterdome, sir. Manhattan's team are prepared to engage the General when they meet at Bay 7."

Whatever irritation the Marshal had felt at the idea of an unattended General running around his base, it was gone in an instant. Pentecost smirked. "He'll love that. Manhattan is one of his favorites."

"Yes, sir." The woman grinned, smug. "They intend to offer a tour of Manhattan's connpod."

"That will take him straight to cloud nine," the Marshal confirmed. "Well done."

"Yes, sir," she agreed, clearly pleased with herself. Jack gaped. She spoke with the familiarity Jack couldn't dream of affecting with a superior officer. An attitude like that wouldn't have been suffered long at the Academy- or any basic training he could think of. His suspicion that she was civilian gained traction.

The woman felt his stare and turned her head to regard him in turn. Even from behind her mirrored lenses Jack's skin frizzled under her gaze, which only amplified when she didn't say a word. He adjusted the weight of his pack across his shoulders.

"Ah, yes, this is Jack O'Neill, our newest Ranger," Pentecost said. "O'Neill, this is Dr. Samantha Carter, our top engineer."

Jack froze to keep the shock from showing. _Not_ a secretary. Jack felt a guilty flush of embarrassment creep up the back of his neck. It explained the casual uniform, and lack of salute. No rank, not military. Civilian scientist. Okay. That explained her behavior, but not the Marshal's. Why was a civilian engineer in charge of his itinerary, and why the hell would she be expected to entertain Generals? Jack filed his questions away in the back of his mind as he accepted the handshake she extended.

Dr. Carter gripped his palm firmly, gave it the customary one-two pump, then released it. _She must be a brat,_ Jack thought, noting her posture. _She holds herself like a soldier._ He grinned, feeling the urge to make a good impression on this woman, no matter her creed. Strangely, it wasn't because the Marshal seemed to trust her. His stomach fluttered like he'd just dropped onto a Jaeger, and he felt himself grinning in spite of himself.

"I look forward to working with you," he chirped. Sunlight glinted off her mirrored shades, dazzling him. Her eyebrow rose a fraction.

"Pleasure," she said. The Marshal quickly took charge of the conversation.

"Doctor Carter is here to answer any questions you may have about your Jaeger or the Shatterdome," he said. He reclaimed his briefcase from her and looked at her expectantly. "Take him to 3. He can get a look at the Jaeger he'll be working with while you give him the rundown. Then show him to his quarters."

"Yes, sir," Carter replied. Pentecost turned to Jack.

"Get some rest, Ranger," he instructed, raising a hand to summon the vehicle standing by. "You've got a long week ahead of you, starting tomorrow." The Marshal's gaze slid wryly towards Carter. "Now I have a general to intercept before he starts looking under the hood."

Dr. Carter features brightened at that. "That could be arranged, sir," she offered enthusiastically.

"Not the kind of hood I was referring to, Carter." Carter's chin lowered slightly in disappointment, but didn't lose the hint of a grin threatening to show. Jack saluted- the idea of the Marshal making a joke gave him a headache. Pentecost returned the salute. "Welcome to the Shatterdome."

A moment later, Pentecost had climbed into the vehicle and was gone, leaving O'Neill alone with Carter. He turned to greet her properly, only to be faced with her back as she headed towards the lift. "Follow me," she called over her shoulder, pitching her voice to carry across the widening gap between them. Jack obeyed without a word of protest.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack trotted to keep up. He sidled into the lift, dodging a passing pallet loader. Carter already leaned up against the back wall of the lift to greet the sole other passenger, a large black man with a bold golden tattoo stenciled on his forehead. She pushed her shades up on the top of her head, revealing sharp eyes that scanned him briefly before focusing on her companion. Though Jack reached his hearing towards them, her voice was too soft for Jack to pick up the guy's name. Jack picked an empty wall and adopted a similar relaxed stance, subtly stretching his spine after the long helicopter ride. The doors didn't close, though no one else approached. Jack looked at Carter and her friend to see if they were expecting anyone, but neither seemed to notice. Faced with the prospect of interrupting their conversation to ask, Jack opted for pressing the door-close button instead. Slowly, the heavy metal doors obliged.

"Hold up, man," the big guy warned behind him. "We got one more-"

"Wait!" a shout came from outside the elevator, heralding the arrival of a tall man in glasses and a denim jacket. The latecomer slid awkwardly between the closing doors, lugging a large, bulky container in his arms. He recognized Carter and her conversation partner immediately. "Oh, hey, Sam. Teal'c."

The doors closed, cutting out the din from the roof and shutting them in with the sudden silence. The stranger turned to rest against the wall opposite Jack, box sloshing ominously. Inquisitive eyes examined Jack from behind wide glasses, and narrowed slightly before realizing that Jack was someone new, and not someone he simply forgot to recognize. "Hi! I'm Daniel. Daniel Jackson."

"Jack O'Neill," Jack returned; the man seemed a little less frosty than Carter, which came as a relief. He searched for a point of conversation, as the lift descended at a snail's pace. "Whatcha got there?"

Daniel's brows lifted, as though confused, then lowered in consternation when he remembered what he held in his hands. "Oh, the box! It's a kaiju tissue sample. Very rare. I just got to San Diego a month ago, so some of my samples are still trickling in. I mean, I'm not new here, I was K-Science at this Shatterdome for years before I got loaned out to Russia to help them study the Category 2 they felled there last year."

Jack grinned at the scientist's propensity to ramble. "So what's that, a souvenir?" He looked pointedly at the box.

"Ah, no. This isn't from Koschei, it's from..." Jackson dropped off abruptly, shooting a glance towards Teal'c, who slid a meaningful look towards Carter, who in turn ignored both of them, her eyes fixed on the floor counter over the doors. "It's from another kaiju. It doesn't matter."

An awkward silence filled the space, pressing in on Jack until Teal'c stepped forwards to introduce himself.

"Hey, man, I'm Teal'c. Welcome to San Diego." He extended a broad hand to Jack, and matched it with a warm smile. "I'm the kwoon master for the Shatterdome. You'll be seeing me tomorrow to be evaluated against your copilot."

"Nice to meet you," Jack returned, shaking the man's outstretched hand. Teal'c's grin was broad and genuine; Jack instantly liked him, but the doors chose that moment to open, canceling any further opportunity for elevator chit chat. Jackson and Teal'c both moved for the door, while Carter remained firmly in place. "Guess I'll be seeing you around then."

"Absolutely. You need anything, you let me know," Teal'c affirmed.

"You'll probably see less of me," Jackson offered in lieu of a handshake. "But the door's open if you want a tour of K-Science."

"I might just take you up on that," Jack returned. "Later."

The doors closed, leaving Jack alone with the ever quiet Carter. He thought she'd looked a little more relaxed while talking with Teal'c, but now she was as rigid as ever. He considered his options, and smoothly bypassed silence. "What was all that about?" he asked. "With the sample?"

"He was trying to be considerate," came her succinct response. "Not all the personnel here likes to know there are pieces of Athos floating around Deck 10."

Jack inhaled sharply. News arrived slowly at the Academy, but word of Athos and the devastation it wrought had come the fastest. On May 1st, 2021, two Jaegers had met Athos at the miracle mile. Neither returned to base. It wasn't the first time a Jaeger had fallen to a Kaiju, but Hiroshi's Sabre had been hot off the manufacture line, the cutting edge of Jaeger technology. It's partner, Whiskey Blue, had the highest kill rate in the fleet. Its pilots were legends. Hiroshi had fallen first, unprepared for the unprecedented might of Athos. When Whiskey was disabled, the reports claimed that its remaining pilot had overloaded the reactor, and channeled the energy towards Athos. It worked, burning a hole straight through the beast's chest, but Whiskey immolated in the process. What remains the crews could retrieve were little more than a charred husk.

Athos was later reclassified as a Category 3, the first of many that later emerged. The event was known in the corps as the May Day Massacre, the key fact that had escaped Jack's realization initially, was that the event had occurred just off the shores of the San Diego Shatterdome. Both of the lost Jaegers had belonged to this very Shatterdome; many of the personnel here had likely watched the event unfold live, seen their compatriots destroyed on screen. Whispers along the coast suspected May Day marked the beginning of the decline for the Jaeger Program. When more Cat 3's poured through the Breach, and the Jaegers struggled to defeat them, global leadership had begun thinking of other solutions, until the Academy had been the ghost building he'd left that morning.

"I'm sorr-" His apology was interrupted by the buzz of the car stopping, opening doors to an unfamiliar deck.

Carter shoved off the bulkhead sharply, brushing past him. "This is our stop." His condolences weren't acknowledged in the slightest. "This way," Carter instructed, even though Jack was already following her from the lift. Around them were the sounds of work. Metal clanging, voices buzzing, and machines whirring all mingled together in the wide open space.

"Teal'c's a little young to be kwoon master, isn't he?" Jack commented, carefully steering the conversation away from Athos and May Day. He quickened his pace until he came abreast of her. "He's nice. I didn't expect that from a kwoon master." Ranger Montgomery "Mustang" Rogers, for example, had ruled the Academy kwoon with a graying beard and the assistance of the sage proverbs he'd gleaned from the martial disciplines he taught.

Carter turned her body to dodge a forklift that edged a little too close to walkway, and smoothly sidestepped an engineer whose vision was blocked by the coils of duct piping piled high in his arms. "Kwoon Masters come in all forms. He's a former pilot himself."

"Really?" Jack tried not to let his incredulity show. Carter hummed in affirmation.

"Andromeda Rex. And he was damn good at it. When he lost his copilot, he chose not to take another one. We're lucky he stuck around. He's one of the best kwoon masters we've ever had. You could learn a lot from him."

"I'm good in the kwoon," Jack protested, stung by the implied insult.

Carter cast him a sideways glance. "My observation was a comment to Teal'c's ability, not yours. You wouldn't be here if you weren't fully capable."

Now that they had cleared the main area of the bay, her long stride slowed considerably. Jack took the opportunity to look around. Though they didn't say a word now, the air around them felt tight with sound. Constant noise drummed against Jack's ears; technicians called to each other, voices clamoring over the cacophony of drilling whirs and buzzing engines. After the solitude of the Academy, the sounds of life was distracting. Gear stacked high in latched storage boxes towered along painted driving lanes, their contents noted in the alpha numeric codes stenciled on their fronts and lids. Some of the designations were familiar from his engineering classes at the Academy, but the majority were as foreign as the bodies moving around them. Turning, he walked backwards for several paces to scan the area they'd just passed. What he had originally thought was a wall now glinted as he paced backwards, but before he could investigate further, Carter called to him.

"Here," she said, raising the safety grate on another lift.

"Another elevator?" he quipped, slipping past her to duck into the space, which was significantly smaller than the ride down from the roof. Carter entered after him, letting the grate slam shut before toggling the switch to take them up.

"You're more than welcome to take the stairs next time, but you'll thank me later."

Jack was ready to thank her by the time they passed Deck 8. Eight flights of stairs wouldn't have been fun with his seabag across one shoulder, no matter how fit he was. They stopped three floors later on Deck 11 and stepped off. Without Carter's fingers on the switch, the bucket began its slow descent to its starting floor. All attempts at conversation died before Jack could start them, consumed by the sudden apprehension churning in his gut. He followed Carter along the catwalk that coursed along the inner wall of what he now realized was one of the turrets sitting on the corner of the Shatterdome. His thoughts turned to that dark glint he'd spotted on the ground; he now knew that it belonged to the Jaeger he'd be piloting. He hadn't seen much- just a dark wall tall enough for the mechanics to need a forklift to reach the top. Part of the boot, he realized.

"Here she is," Carter announced. She guided them to a small section of the catwalk that widened to accommodate either people or equipment without impeding normal traffic. It seemed unnecessary at the moment- there was no one to interrupt them as they sidled up to the rail. It overhung the main area they'd just wound their way through and from here, the chaos of lanes and boxes and people were impeccably mapped, designed for clear efficiency. Most importantly, their vantage granted them an unobstructed view of the most beautiful Jaeger Jack had ever seen. Jack's heart leapt to his throat as he stepped up to the rail, eyes glued to the magnificent sentinel standing tall before him. "This," Carter said, "is Belladonna Banshee."


	4. Chapter 4

Jack dreamed about Jaegers the first time he saw Yukon Brawler on the television. Growing up in Minnesota was as far from the coast as one could get, and the townfolk had been caught up in the fervor as the rest of the world, but their enthusiasm quickly waned when the action remained distant. Only Jack still hungered for more after Yukon's televised debut. He scoured the shelves for the few plastic figures that made it to the toy aisle of the general store, and imagined himself at the helm. Any spare cent went towards books and stat cards, tracking the transition from the Mark 1's to the 2's. When he came of age, there was no question where he wanted to be- the only delay had been telling his father, who like others had come to believe that the Jaegers were pure propaganda to justify the ration cards the federal government rolled out. The rest of the world called it survival- the midwest called it theft. In the end, Jack wasted his time trying to find the right time to enlist; there was no right time.

The first time he laid eyes on the Academy's resident Jaeger, Sensei, Jack's heart had pounded so hard Sensei's profile had jumped and bounced in his vision. Now Belladonna Banshee did the same. She towered taller than even Sensei had that first day, topping him by at least another hundred feet and spanned another 5 decks above them. In one moment, her immensity made it seem as though he could reach out and touch her. The next, Jack caught sight of the technicians barely visible against her hull. Technicians worked on key points of her hull, mere ants against her massive bulk- he spied one cluster on her left shoulder, another spaced evenly across the dead center of her breastplate, sparks flying as they welded the edges of her plating.

Banshee's helm evoked the style of the medieval greathelms he saw in history books, with a flat top and a narrow eye slit to serve as the viewport of the connpod. Sparks from the technicians working on her shoulder flared against the red tint of the viewport screen, dancing across the metal like a heartbeat. She stood at a proud attention, her chest plates closed to present a battle ready warrior, just waiting for her pilots. Jack could barely breathe as he continued to stare.

In the shadows, her hull gleamed a rich, thick black, but the rays of light filtering down from above caught oddly on her edges. A shifting sheen of green, purple, and deep blue all shimmered like oil in a puddle, distorting her planes and angles to blur her true shape to the naked eye. Jack tilted his head this way and that, piecing together as whole an outline as he could. As he did the oily colors spooled and glimmered against Banshee's base black, as though she wore the galaxy as a cloak.

Jack returned to his senses when a passing technician called sharply to a colleague. Heat crept up his neck when he realized he'd been staring. He sent a guilty glance to Carter, but froze when he found her similarly entranced. He pulled his eyes away immediately, certain she would catch him looking, but Carter's gaze didn't budge. Her previous exhaustion melted away in her admiration for the Jaeger looming before them, and the stiffness of her expression softened noticeably. She looked at Belladonna Banshee like she was the only thing that existed, her eyes warm with an affection Jack had yet to see her direct towards any human. A gentle smile curled her lips, belying a devotion Jack only recognized because he felt it deep in his own soul.

Someone bumped him from behind, thumping his shoulder against Carter's, dispelling the trance Banshee cast on her. A blush rose to her cheeks, and suddenly Jack found himself on common ground with her. "She's gorgeous," he said reverently. He hitched his bag higher on his shoulder as he stepped as far back as their alcove would allow. It put less than a foot between them, but it was enough for Jack to regain his breath.

Carter smiled again, quickly this time, not lingering longer than an instant. Her eyes flickered back to the Jaeger across the bay. Jack's gaze followed the movement, again drinking in the sight of the Jaeger that would be his. "She is," she confirmed. "There's nothing like Banshee in the entire fleet."

Jack tore his eyes away again to look at Carter, and found her looking at him. Her gaze skittered away upon being caught in a stare. "How long have you been working on her?" He carefully pushed his luck. The Carter he'd met on the roof had intrigued him, but this Carter drew him in as inexorably as a magnet. His pounded, as though any wayward syllable could spring the trap, and either he'd be lost, or she would.

"A little over six years," she replied. She leaned her forearms against the rail, chin tilting up to keep her eyes on Banshee. "She's changed a lot in that time."

Jack braced his hands on the top bar of the railing, shifting his weight forward. "Yeah?"

"She had to. Each new Kaiju through the Breach is different. Bigger, faster, stronger. The last Jaegers to come off the line tried to compensate, but the funding dried up before we could implement a lot of the design changes. Now we're lucky to get a Mark 3. So we've been trying to beef up the existing Marks. Banshee has been the guinea pig for a lot of those changes."

"Wow," Jack whistled. "I had no idea. Have the improvements been implemented on the other Jaegers?"

Carter shook her head. "Not yet. Command wants to see the changes in action before they commit to outfitting the rest of the fleet. In just the past six months alone she's had 80% of her systems overhauled, including a complete re-armoring using a new polymer designed to mimic the resiliency of Kaiju hide. Once she proves herself in battle, we'll have the clearance to implement the changes to the rest of the Shatterdome. Eventually, the other 'domes will follow suit. That's why the Marshal was so eager to find a new pilot."

Her words opened up a pit under Jack's feet. He loved Banshee at first sight; even now, he felt the connection, sparking that tiny voice whispering _mine_ whenever he looked at her. He had completely forgotten the uncertainty of his situation. He hadn't even met his prospective copilot, let alone have any idea whether they would share enough compatibility to drive the beautiful mech. Carter's reminder crashed over him in an icy wave. His stomach lurched at the sudden realization that this Jaeger might not be his after all.

"If you can do all of that, the Kaiju won't know what hit them," he joked.

"It won't matter if we can't get her moving."

His attempt to distract himself from his impending failure fell flat. He'd meant to earn a smile and a quick agreement from his guide, but her gaze had turned thoughtful, and didn't seem to register the predicament he faced.

"Yeah, no pressure, huh?" The words released in a sigh. Carter blinked, and suddenly he was the focus of her attention instead of Banshee.

"That's not what I meant," she corrected, her expression softening as she tried to allay his concerns. She straightened, palming the rail as she pulled back to her full height. "A lot of people assume the Jaegers give us the upper hand in this war. That assumption is false."

Jack blinked, uncertain how to respond. He had no idea where she was going with this, and when their gazes met he saw an intelligence that hinted she might not be on the same plane as he was.

"Jaegers only level the playing field," she continued. "They give us scale, but not the edge humanity needs to win."

"Then what does?" Jack asked, his thoughts racing to keep up. Aside from the catastrophe and then slowly increasing casualties of the Kaiju events since, humanity hadn't done too badly for itself so far. Even now, human casualty numbers were far lower than was recorded before the inception of the Jaeger program, and to date the Jaegers had terminate every beast that emerged from the breach. They had to be doing something right.

Carter's eyes glimmered as a heavy batch of sparks bounced off Banshee's chestplate. "Their pilots do."

Jack straightened in place. He was a pilot, or would be if he tested well. A slight flush crept up his jaw, then deepened when Carter's gaze warmed at his reaction. She continued.

"Every new Kaiju through the Breach tries to outmatch our Jaegers. Our mech gets bigger, and so do they. The Marks get faster, and the kaiju eventually keep up."

"But they can't match our tactics," Jack surmised, finally catching on. He was rewarded with a nod.

"The one thing a kaiju can't adapt to is human ingenuity. When faced with certain death we will do the impossible to survive. Our tactics, our martial skills are always changing, and that makes us unpredictable. The kaiju can mimic our tech, but not our resourcefulness. Our pilots are the pinnacle of our combined innovation. They are the ones who give us the edge. Without them, the Jaegers are just hunks of metal. Impressive, and pretty to look at, but empty."

Jack took a deep breath. In the Academy, their training put a pilot's value in their scarcity. Each round of testing was designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, from the physical tests of endurance and strength, to the mental evaluations to the IQ tests, all of it designed to find those precious few capable of piloting a Jaeger. The Jaegers were the weapons: the pilots were their fragile power source. No one had put the value on the pilots' resourcefulness.

He cleared his throat, grinding against the sudden lump lodged there. "So, then, the system overhaul would be…?"

"Our responsibility to provide our pilots with the best weapons we can. Otherwise, it'd be like sending you into a nuclear war armed with BB guns." A wry smile twisted her features, revealing yet another facet of the engineer. "The greatest value lies in the balance between pilot and Jaeger. I just happen to know that pilots are harder to replace, and tougher to beat."

Jack grinned. He liked her, he realized suddenly. Not just because she had indirectly suggested that he as a pilot had more worth than the titan towering over them, which inflated his ego to roughly the same size as Banshee herself. Rather it was because of the new perspective she'd lent him, or perhaps the easy rationale she'd used to deliver it.

"Well, then," he said, grinning broadly, "as Banshee's potential new pilot, thanks."

Carter rolled her eyes, just a bit. Not enough to erase her tiny, persistent smirk. "You're welcome."

"What kind of changes-" Jack's attempt to learn more about Banshee's upgrades was interrupted by a shout from behind.

"Hey! New guy!"

The unexpected shout cut through their comfortable bubble, and suddenly the trap Jack had almost forgotten about sprang shut. The warmth in Carter's gaze doused immediately, and her expressive features shuttered completely. Her stance stiffened shifted from one of animated enthusiasm to defiant professionalism. The clipboard she'd tucked under her arm returned to her chest, an ineffective shield against the hail. Jack turned to face their visitor, irrationally angry with whoever had thwarted the fledgling friendship sprouting from their shared awe of Banshee.

" _Hey, old guy!_ " Jack drawled in the direction of the bearded man jogging towards them. Carter stiffened beside Jack, stifling a sudden, muted giggle. Jack bit back a grin of his own, and kept it close.

"Old guy?" The man, a Ranger from his off-duty attire, glanced at Carter in suspicion. "What exactly have you been telling the man, Sam?"

"Nothing he didn't need to know, Hanson," Carter replied frostily. When Hanson's gaze darkened, Jack stepped between them.

"She was showing me the ropes," he explained.

Hanson gave him an appreciative nod. Carter stepped from behind him, sidling away to give her space between them, and suddenly Jack had the sinking suspicion he'd somehow chosen a side, and that somehow he'd chosen Hanson's. Hanson turned back to Carter before Jack could find a way to undo his mistake. "Don't you think you should be leaving the ropes to the actual Rangers, Sammy?"

Carter's jaw twitched, vibrating with tension as she grit her teeth. "Marshal's orders, Hanson. If you've got a problem with that, take it up with Pentecost."

Jonas' smirk stretched until he was grinning darkly. "I'm sure we don't have to go to that kind of trouble. In fact, I bet you have plenty of very important things to do in engineering."

"Actually, I do."

"You know, Dr. Carter and I were just getting to the good stuff," Jack jumped in desperately, sensing that Hanson was about to win the bid for his company, and suddenly very aware he did _not_ want that to happen. "About Banshee, that is. I'd really like to continue, if that's okay-"

"Let me guess: she was about to pull out her color-coded binder of stats and outputs." Hanson scoffed, dismissing Jack's request with a wave of his hand. "There's more to a Jaeger than just numbers, any pilot can tell you that."

A tightening of Carter's grip on her clipboard told Jack that Hanson's dig had hit its mark. She turned on her heel to face Jack. _Please don't leave, please don't leave, please don't-_ She handed him a small memory card sheathed in plastic. "This is Banshee's manual. I recommend you take the time to study it, as any files you may have read in the Academy are likely outdated."

Jack accepted the small square with stiff fingers, acutely aware of Hanson's hand now clamped tight on his shoulder. "Thanks," he muttered. _Traitor_. Then he brightened as a thought occurred to him. "If I have any questions…?"

He silently begged her to take pity on him. Carter's gaze darted briefly to Hanson. Some pilots relied on instinct to drive a Jaeger, Jack knew, and surmised that Hanson was one of them. His jabs about stats hadn't been promising. Jack didn't adhere to that school of thought, and he could only hope that his prospective copilot didn't share Hanson's opinion either. Carter offered him a tiny glimmer of hope.

"If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them," she affirmed. Hanson's smirk into a dour scowl.

"Great!" Jack chirped. He cleared his throat, taking his enthusiasm down a notch. "Where can I find you?"

"Ask anyone in Banshee's docking bay. They'll point you in the right direction."

"If you're finished," Hanson butted in again, stoking Jack's temper even more, "I'm gonna take O'Neill here and introduce him to his fellow pilots."

"All yours, Ranger," Carter returned with a sickly sweet smile. It didn't reach her eyes, and resulted in a painful grimace. "You kids have fun." Her eyes met Jack's again briefly before she turned and went on her way, leaving Jack to fend for himself against Hanson, who _tsk_ ed mockingly.

"What?" Jack growled.

"You're barking up the wrong tree on that one, brother. She's stone cold frigid."

A spark arced down Jack's spine. His skin crawled as he maneuvered himself out from under Hanson's arm. Everything about Hanson rubbed Jack the wrong way- caustic, sexist, crude… all qualities Jack abhorred in a fellow officer wrapped up into a single, sauntering package.

"I don't think that's any of our business, is it?" Jack snapped. "And what makes you think that was even on my mind?"

Hanson waved his indignation away. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone's had a hard-on for Carter at some point or another. It's better to just get it out of the way now before you get in over your head."

"I need to learn more about the Jaeger I might be piloting, and Dr. Carter is the best person to learn from." Jack stopped short, spearing Hanson with a suspicious glare. "And _you_ still haven't explained who you are, and why you seem to think you're so much better than her."

Hanson smirked, a gleam of something sparked in his expression. He extended his hand in greeting. "Jonas Hanson. I've piloted Banshee for the past six years. And _you_ ," he said, shoving Jack's shoulder when he failed to accept the offered handshake, "are my new co-pilot."


	5. Chapter 5

**Warnings: Mild Language**

* * *

Oh, no.

Oh, _hell_ no.

Jack's protests railed in his own ears as he mechanically, finally, accepted his copilot's handshake. There had to be some mistake. Jonas slung an arm around his shoulders and steered him away from Banshee. Jack's brain remained gridlocked as Hanson led him around the base. Pentecost told him at the Academy there was a good chance he'd be compatible with his copilot. As Hanson's voice droned on and on, Jack grew more convinced the Marshal had made a mistake. Resentment coiled tighter in Jack's gut, crawling over his skin. Jack repeatedly shrugged away Jonas' unwelcome arm, but it returned just a few minutes later.

Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, Jack considered. Jonas had made it clear to Jack that he had some kind of history with Dr. Carter. Maybe he was just territorial around her. Jack grimaced. That option wasn't any better. And besides, a grudge against Dr. Carter didn't explain his dig at engineering. The PPDC had no shortage of pilots who shared that holier-than-thou mentality. That sense of elitism made it easier for some pilots to step up against the Kaiju, and believe they would make it home again. Most pilots saved it for the locker room. In reality, a pilot could only be successful if everyone else had done their jobs. Pilots came on the scene at the very end of the process, after the other disciplines had already built, programmed, tested, corrected, repaired and prepared the Jaeger for battle, and even Jack knew you really _really_ didn't want to piss off engineering. Or the cook staff.

"So, the yellow line is the commissary, red is medical, and blue will take you to K-Science- don't waste your time there either," Jonas explained the color-coded lines striping the deck under their feet. So far, all of them matched the system at the Academy. There were only a couple he didn't recognize. "Those Kaiju lovers will talk your ear off if you give them even a second. Alternating colors are the Jaeger bays. Banshee is purple and black, red and gold is Manhattan Bombshell." Suddenly, Jonas clapped him roughly on the shoulder, nearly dislodging Jack's pack and making him stumble.

"Manhattan! Just wait until I introduce you to the guys! Rumor has it you're fresh out of the Academy. Those old geezers they have as instructors mean well, but they haven't experienced the real thing in a long time. Just wait til you start rubbing elbows with the real pilots."

Jack's teeth ground tightly. For all his extra time at the Academy, he never lost an ounce of his respect for the men and women who had been on the front lines and not only survived, but come back to teach the next generation. He barely withheld his contempt verbally, but settled for peeling the arm off his shoulders.

"That sounds great," he lied, "but I'm pretty beat. I'd really like to just go get some sleep. And I still need to go over Banshee's manual." He kept the memory card safe in his pocket, certain that Hanson would pluck it from his fingers if given the chance. Even with that temptation denied him, Jonas' gaze darkened with suspicion.

"The manual?" Hanson said, disbelieving.

"It has nothing to do with Dr. Carter."

"It better not." Hanson stepped in close, and place a conspiratorial hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'm telling you, she's bad news."

"Yeah, you said that already."

Hanson's hand tightened on his shoulder, sending a sliver of pain across Jack's collar bone. "And you're not listening. Give her even half a chance, and she will tank your career so fast you won't know what hit you. Okay? Just trust me on this. The only reason she's even on this base is because Pentecost is in her pocket."

Jack raised an eyebrow. The familiarity he'd witnessed on the roof still befuddled him, but even then Pentecost had remained firmly in charge of the exchange. "Is that right?"

Jonas blinked, then withdrew slightly in surprise before breaking into a loud laugh. "You don't know who she is, do you?" He laughed again, this time low in his throat. "I'm gonna do you another solid. Pentecost piloted Coyote Tango back in the day."

It had come up in his notes on the flight, and his affinity for Jaeger trivia reminded him that Coyote Tango was one of the earliest Mark 1's to roll off the line. It hadn't been in service long, barely five years, but in that time it racked up an impressive number of kills- 12 kaiju dead, all told. At the time Coyote had been stationed out of the Lima Shatterdome in Peru. Pentecost's experience as a pilot likely contributed to his success as a Marshal, but Jack failed to see what bearing it had on Carter or Hanson's distaste for her.

"And your point is...?" Jack prompted.

Hanson smirked, and Jack's resentment ratcheted up another notch, knowing he'd given the guy the chance to get one over on him. "He piloted Coyote Tango with Jacob Carter."

Even Jack's father in Minnesota knew who Jacob Carter was. Jacob Carter piloted a record number of three different Jaegers, and had held the record for highest kill rate for individual pilot for almost 6 years- until the Mark 2's were developed and implemented. Coyote Tango wasn't his most well-known Jaeger, but it was his last Jaeger- if Jack remembered correctly, he died in the pilot's chair. The trading cards tended to not focus on those kinds of details. Jacob Carter was a legend- did Hanson mean to imply that Doctor Samantha Carter was his daughter? And that Jack had been talking to the daughter of Jacob Carter without realizing it?

"Holy shit."

Hanson misinterpreted Jack's awe for agreement and clapped him on the shoulder. "Tell me about it," he commiserated. "The Marshal treats her like family. Between that and the fact she's Jaeger royalty, they keep her around when anyone else would have been tossed out on their ass."

Wait, what? Before Jack could puzzle out what Hanson meant by _that_ , Jonas' eyes caught on something over Jack's shoulder.

"Yo, Kowalsky!" Hanson called. He briefly turned his attention back to Jack. "I know she's tempting, okay, but she's just not worth it. Stick with us, and you'll go places, kid. We'll lead you straight." If he was looking for Jack's agreement, he didn't wait for it. "Now, come on. I want you to meet Manhattan."

He spun Jack around to face who he assumed was Kowalsky, a broad-shouldered man with a high-and-tight and clean shaven jaw. A skinnier man trailed a few steps behind, looking utterly disinterested. Kowalsky tapped fists with Hanson in greeting. "Hey man." He looked Jack up and down. "This your new guy? Not bad." He extended an open palm towards Jack. "Chuck Kowalsky, Manhattan Bombshell."

"Jack O'Neill." His knowledge of Manhattan Bombshell was limited at best, aware of only the fact that it was built like a tank and tough as hell. "Belladonna Banshee. Maybe," he amended.

"Are you kidding?" Hanson crowed. "You're gonna get it, no question. I can already tell you're a fast learner. O'Neill here is fresh out of the Academy."

Kowalsky's brow hitched upwards in speculation. "Really? I thought everyone phased out already. Making room for the Wall they're going to build, or so I heard." The skinny guy at his shoulder snorted. It was a sentiment that seemed to be shared by the other guys as well. Jack felt it too. The Wall might be a good secondary defense, but it couldn't do what a Jaeger did. Sacrificing the Jaeger Program for the Wall was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Not everyone," Jack replied.

"Apparently not. This is Lou Ferretti, my copilot."

"No, you're _my_ copilot," Ferretti drawled. He nodded in Jack's direction. "Nice to meet you. Hungry?"

Before Jack could beg off and try to steal some quiet time, his stomach rumbled ominously. His shoulders slumped when the others laughed and Jonas slugged him none too gently on the bicep. "C'mon, champ. We'll show you where the commissary is."

"Yellow stripe, right?" he drawled. It earned him chuckles from Team Manhattan and a harder, more painful punch from Hanson, but if it meant he got under Hanson's skin even a little bit, it was worth it. Jack sighed, dread settling in yet again as he followed his teammate towards the commissary. He wanted to pilot. He needed to pilot. He would just have to make this work- somehow.


	6. Chapter 6

**Warnings: Mild Language**

* * *

Six long hours after he first stepped foot in the San Diego Shatterdome, Jack finally found peace. His assigned quarters stood stark and empty, devoid of any personal touch. A metal frame bunk sat in one corner, opposite a sheet-metal work table for a desk. The bare stone walls were plain, but dry, and when he turned on the lamp the hazy half-burned out light gave the room an almost cozy feel. He hoped it would be a home for him, at least for a little while. If it was, it would mean his dream of piloting a Jaeger had finally become reality. All he ever wanted sat at his fingertips. All he had to do was hold his tongue and not screw it up.

Jack glanced briefly at the neatly folded bedding sitting on the industrial mattress, but all thoughts of a nap evaporated when his fingers brushed the small square of plastic still hiding in his pocket. Belladonna Banshee's manual, bestowed upon him by Samantha Carter herself. He scrubbed a hand over his face, ashamed that he'd spent so long talking with her without realizing who she was. She probably thought he was some kind of idiot. Still, there had been a moment while they were talking, just a heartbeat, when they had almost connected.

When another quick scan of the room didn't reveal a computer terminal, Jack groaned. Jonas never gave him a chance to ask where requisitions was, let alone how long it would take to get a datapad. An increasingly familiar irritation crept up his spine, fraying exhausted nerves. Now requisitions would be closed, even if he managed to locate it on his own. He eyed his bed again, but suddenly the thought of sleep wasn't so appealing as it'd been a minute ago. The memory card burned in his palm, begging to be read. Banshee's secrets wanted to be known. He might not learn them tonight, but while he wondered, sleep would elude him. The exhaustion melted away in an instant, leaving him wired and wound tighter than a spring. He quickly dumped his seabag on the desk and tucked the datachip into the front pocket of his blouse.

Jack took the long away out of the barracks, hoping that detouring past the head wouldn't raise too many eyebrows. The quickest way to Bay 3 cut past Hanson's bunk. He hoped Hanson wasnt the kind of guy to press his nose against the hatch to spy on passersby, but knowing his luck today, Jack as sure he'd be spotted simply by chance if anywhere in Hanson's general vicinity. He shuddered to think how Jonas would react if he found out Jack made a late-night visit to Banshee. In the end, his efforts were rewarded by an unaccosted journey to the main corridor, where he then followed the easily recognized black and purple stripe to Banshee's bay.

The tension of the day bled away when Jack laid eyes on the Jaeger once more. Her chest plates winged outwards now, exposing her double reactor core. Warm floodlights bathed her in a hazy glow, more than enough for a crew to work by. Most of the bodies swarming her used Decks 8 & 9 to access her core, but Jack spotted a few people on the far side of the bay on Deck 7, and headed that way. As he coursed his way around the circumference of the chamber, he kept his eyes on Banshee, mesmerized by the way the light shifted and shone on of her hull. In the areas where the darkest shadows gathered, he lost track of her outline. Her form became indistinct, and with a small thrill of excitement, he imagined her on the seas at night- in the dark, a kaiju might just lose track of her.

Jack paced across Deck 6 before climbing the stairs and slowly making his way across 7. He made a note of some of the faces and nametags he could see, but most of the technicians along the way didn't give him a second glance, focused and intent on their work. He abandoned any thought he had to stoll down the catwalk to actually touch Banshee's hull when he saw the small shapes of corpsmen already hard at work. They might allow a fanboy wannabe pilot his whimsy, but Jack didn't have the energy to insert himself among so many people, not even for a touch of Banshee. He paused at the steps up to Deck 8, and craned his neck to peer up to Banshee's helm. A sigh caught in his chest. Without Banshee's stats, he couldn't be sure of her exact height, but any perspective he got earlier that afternoon from across the way meant nothing. From here, she was simply beyond comprehension. Her sheer size shrank him down to the tiniest ant, and absurdly, he wondered if that was how the Kaiju saw them- as insects, tiny and inconsequential. The idea made him smirk. If ants could create human-sized killer robots, humanity would have run for the hills. Soon, the Kaiju would be no different.

His self-guided tour continued another two decks. Halfway through scanning the faces passing he realized that each one left him feeling more and more disappointed. In that moment he realized he'd scanned each face in search of one in particular. Jack drifted to a stop. _Idiot_. Carter wouldn't be working the night shift if she'd spent the day assisting the Marshal. That didn't stop him from reaching out to the next technician who passed, touching the arm of a young hispanic woman with a long braid tucked into the back of her coveralls.

"Is Dr. Carter here?" he blurted before he could think better of it. The woman paused, scanning him briefly.

"You came too far," she returned in a lightly accented voice. "Deck 5."

"Seriously?" He'd climbed all the way up here and she'd been at the very start? Deck 5 had been pretty sparse. He would have seen Carter if she'd been there. "You're sure?"

Dark eyebrows lifted dangerously. "You asked, I answered."

"Right, sorry," Jack followed up quickly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bite your head off."

His benefactor smirked. Her nametape read Soto. "Hey, I get it. It's a lot of stairs." Jack nodded, relieved he'd rescued the situation. "Imagine working here," Soto quipped, still smirking as she took several backwards steps as she got back on her way.

Jack grinned sheepishly and offered a wave. "Thank you."

"Uh huh." Then Soto was back on her way, leaving Jack standing dumbly on the catwalk.

"Way to go, O'Neill," he grumbled as he retraced his steps down the stairs. He continued down them until he hit Deck 5. Just like before, the space was sparse of people. He set his sights on one unfamiliar face and wasted no time in asking after Dr. Carter.

The bespectacled man didn't even look up from the electrical panel lying open before him, and motioned towards the far end of the catwalk with the overlarge wrench in his hand. Jack stepped back to avoid the waving bludgeon, and cast a glance over to find nothing but Banshee's hull. Inhaling deeply, he kept the remains of his Hanson-fueled temper tamped down. "You sure?" he asked.

"Yup," the technician responded, then quickly hefted the huge wrench back onto his shoulder. Before Jack could ask again the man collected his bag and left. Reluctantly, Jack slowly ambled towards Banshee, acutely aware that he was probably being punked. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he squashed it. He only expected that because of Hanson, who had helpfully directed him to go the wrong way through the food line while he and Manhattan's team found a table. He'd almost made it through without realizing his error, until a group of Motor-T guys came in the right way and politely told him to fuck off.

Jonas' smirk when he joined them at the table still burned in his mind. He would be damned if he gave Hanson the satisfaction of altering his assumptions about other people on base. Luckily, his faith in the wrench-wielder's intentions paid off when he shifted his path slightly, approaching the hull at an angle to discover Banshee's odd coloring had disguised a paneled section propped open to create an access point.

A narrow grate extended into the Jaeger. Jack paused at the threshold, placing a reverent hand on Banshee's hull. He imagined it hummed under his touch, the vibrations of the workmen's efforts within tickling his palm. The metal was warm to the touch, more than he thought it would be. Using his hand to brace himself, he leaned his head inside. A cacophony of whirring drills and snapping sparks assaulted him from a dozen directions, their sources all out of sight.

"Hello?" The din overwhelmed Jack's call, quickly swallowing it in the avalanche of sound. When he pounded his fist against the hull, it sounded little more than dull thuds. "HELLOOOOO!"

For a long moment, Jack thought he'd gone unheard again, until one drill suddenly stopped. It seemed to be the closest, and the absence of it gave Jack some room to breathe. "What?" a muffled voice responded, sounding even nearer than he anticipated. He craned his neck, but the speaker remained stubbornly out of sight.

"I'm looking for Dr. Carter!" Jack shouted louder. "Is she here?"

"WHAT?!"

"DOCTOR CARTER!" He bellowed.

"Hold on! I can't hear you!" He heard a clank and the sound of something sliding before a head dropped down in front of his nose, dangling from a ledge over his head he hadn't noticed. It took him a moment to recognize the upside down face as the one he was looking for.

"Oh," Dr. Carter said, recognizing him instantly. "O'Neill. What can I do for you?"

Disheartened by her lack of enthusiasm, Jack cleared his throat. "You said you'd be able to answer some questions?" He waved to the machine around them. "About Banshee."

Her brow furrowed. "Now? It's nearly midnight."

Jack shrugged. "We're both up."

"And I'm busy. Have you read the manual?"

"Ah, no," Jack responded truthfully. Carter rolled her eyes, and looked ready to disappear back into Banshee when Jack continued quickly. "Look, I was planning on reading the manual- I still am! I don't have a datapad and I have no idea where requisitions is, and I could ask Hanson but I only just shook him, so I was hoping NOT to hear his speech about 'Academy mo-tards' again tonight."

Carter didn't look impressed, exactly. But Jack could swear she softened some. "And you can't wait until morning because…"

"Because…" Jack scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. _Ah, hell._ "I can't get her out of my head. I had the chip in my pocket and I couldn't stop thinking about it-about her. I was just gonna come out and take a look, and then… Look, I knew it was a long shot, finding you here this late, but if I ask anyone else they'll just point me to Hanson, and I can't guarantee he won't feed me bullshit just to confuse the noob."

His skin heated under her stare. It wasn't a good sign he was already looking for ways to avoid his copilot, especially one who was the big man on base. Jack hid his disgust in front of Hanson himself- not a hard thing to do, when Jonas talked so much Jack could keep his mouth shut and his head down. The man required little input from his audience. After seeing Carter's disgust earlier that afternoon, it was harder to hide his feelings in front of fellow sufferer. Or maybe he just talked to keep himself from staring at her as her face flushed rapidly from the blood rushing to her still dangling head.

"Hanson must have said half a million words today," he cringed, "but he didn't once mention Banshee. And after what you hinted about her improvements, I can't figure out how he could talk about anything else." Carter didn't respond. "I'm sorry. I know it's an imposition. It's late, you have work to do, and holding my hand is probably the last thing you thought would be on your schedule tonight, but- I'm still asking. I can't _not_ ask."

A harrowing moment passed when Carter stared at him. Jack suffered it willingly, biting his tongue to keep from backing down. Finally, Carter caved. "Fine. Give me a second."

She disappeared again briefly, and when she reappeared she passed him a wide, sectioned canvas bag. Jack accepted it, and promptly fumbled it, not expecting the considerable weight. He glanced inside it as he hoisted it onto his shoulder, and found the weight was the result of organized chaos, dozens of tools and meters neatly squared away in the many pockets that lined the bag. He expected Carter to slide down feet first, but to his surprise she instead grabbed the lip on the underside of the ledge. He stared as she smoothly brought her legs down, unfurling her body until she hung by her fingertips. She dropped nimbly to her feet and turned to reclaim her toolbag. He blinked.

"What?" she demanded.

"You're an engineer?" He never imagined an engineer would have the core or upper body strength for that kind of dismount.

"You're a Ranger?" Carter parroted, mimicking his dubious tone. When he didn't respond, one imperious eyebrow lifted. "What, are we not doing that thing where we both incredulously state known facts to each other?"

Jack felt his cheeks heat again in the face of her irritation. "Sorry," he offered, and meant it. He should have learned his lesson on the roof about trying to guess anything about her. With a roll of her eyes, Dr. Carter slung the tool bag across her shoulders with practiced ease. It pressed heavily against her hip as she led him back across the catwalk. "And, thanks. I… also wanted to apologize. For earlier, with Hanson."

Carter shrugged, casting her gaze over the edge of the railing. "No one is responsible for Hanson but Hanson."

"Yeah. But I should have spoken up. I didn't like how he spoke to you, and I should have said so."

Carter's brow wrinkled, unsure what to make of the apology he offered. She didn't seem to know quite what to make of him. "Thanks, I guess..."

Eager to prove he was in earnest, Jack plowed ahead. "Look, I know Banshee doesn't work without the help of a lot of people, and the engineering team is a huge part of keeping her operational. I plan on reminding Jonas of that the next-"

"Save your breath." Carter tugged the strap of her tool bag higher on her shoulder, leading the way down the gangway. "He's heard it before. He doesn't care."

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, following Carter's steps closely as they neared the intersecting corridor. Military bearing urged him to keep his misgivings about his copilot to himself, but here was the one person on the base who didn't seem to be completely under his thrall. Maybe, just maybe, she'd understand where he was coming from, and could validate the concerns he had about piloting with Hanson.

"To be completely honest…" Jack thought better of it before he could finish his sentence. Blue eyes glanced at him, and he found himself continuing. "I just… I don't know how they expect me to be to drift-compatible with someone like him. I can barely stand to be in the same room with him. I don't know if I should be offended that they think I _could_ drift with him-"

"Hold up," Carter interrupted, her voice clipped. She paused at the end of the catwalk, then made a hard right towards a shadowed alcove near the next intersection. The cut out seemed out of place in a Shatterdome engineered for efficiency. It was too narrow to store equipment and led nowhere. Judging by the rust circles on the deck it looked like may have housed a mop bucket for some time, but it got them out of the traffic lanes and gave them some modicum of privacy. Between the shadows and the hour, the few technicians passing them gave them little notice.

Carter turned to face him, leaning back against the wall behind her. "Compatibility with Jonas wasn't a factor when the Marshal selected you."

It may have been what he wanted to hear, but still Jack's heart sank as the words hit home. The disappointment touched all the little suspicions he'd had since the Marshal found him at the Academy. No one expected him to succeed. deep, finding the hidden suspicions he'd had since the Marshal had found him at the Academy. They needed a warm body, prove to the brass that they were actively trying to find someone. Maybe a stunt to entice more funding out of the Joint Chiefs. The why didn't mattered. The bottom line remained that without compatibility, there was no piloting. No Banshee. Jack left the Academy for nothing. Resentment crawled up his esophagus, threatening to strangle him. The Marshal made no secret that there was no guarantee of compatibility, but now it felt like Pentecost deliberately misled him and _that_ burned like fire.

"Then why the hell am I here?" he demanded.

"We need to get Banshee moving," Carter replied. "You wanted to learn about the changes we made, but what you really need to know is what we've been trying to achieve by making them."

"Providing pilots with the best weapons possible, I know," he spat. "I remember."

Carter didn't rise to the goading, instead regarding him with empathetic understanding. "Okay, cool it. I'm trying to explain." She waited until he nodded and sank back against the wall. "For the past six months I've been redesigning Banshee's neural interface to reduce the drift quotient required for her to function."

Jack blinked. "Oh." He paused to think about it, then shook his head. "What?"

"Every Jaeger needs a certain amount of neural input from their pilots in order to move. The neural load required to control the Jaeger is too much for any one pilot to bear alone, which is why each Jaeger is assigned two or more pilots to share the load. Right?"

"Right," Jack confirmed. He learned that in Jaeger History 101; every pilot candidate who stepped foot in the Academy learned it.

"What we know as drift compatibility is a measure of how well two pilots can distribute the load evenly. The higher degree of compatibility pilots share, the easier it is to manipulate the Jaeger. That compatibility, against the neural load of the Jaeger, generates the drift quotient." Carter's hands gestured as she spoke, illustrating the principle she was trying to explain. "Now, there are two ways to reduce the drift quotient. The easiest way is to have higher compatibility. The second, more difficult option is to reduce the Jaeger's neural load."

"I thought they tried that," Jack pointed out. "They went through half a dozen recruits before Dr. Lightcap used the pons bridge to join her mind with Sergio D'Onofrio's and they found that two pilots fixed the certain-death issue. They were never able to lower the quotient further."

Carter shifted, relaxing against the bulkhead behind her. "They didn't have me."

Jack's eyebrows lifted sharply, surprised to hear her confidence. "Really? That's…"

"Well-earned bravado," Carter finished for him. "And it wasn't that they _couldn't_. They had a war to fight and an ample supply of pilots with sufficient compatibility. Why chase a lower quotient when they could simply roll out 30 Mark 1's instead?"

Jack paused. It made sense. Still, if it were as easy as she made it sound, why had it taken so long to get it done?

"The weapons upgrades were easy, and the re-armoring was done over a year ago. But Hanson struck out with every prospective pilot they put in front of him, and with personnel resources dwindling, we had to pursue option number two. Over the past twelve months I have reduced Banshee's neural load by 46 percent."

Jack's eyes widened. "Whoa." The corner of Carter's mouth crept upwards. Her bravado was well-earned, apparently. "Hard to believe you'd even need to bother with a second pilot with numbers like that."

Carter shook her head. "Our simulations show that we'd have to reduce the quotient an additional 24 percent to guarantee the survival of a single pilot. At this point, we've hit a plateau. To pursue the reduction any further is prohibitive to the resources available, so the Marshal started the search for a copilot."

Jack crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "So why me? Hell, why Hanson? Why not just remove him and get two new pilots altogether?"

"There aren't many Mark 2 pilots left, O'Neill. Those that remain are already paired with compatible partners. And for all his talk, Hanson really is good- one of the best. You were at the Academy when they phased in Mark 3 Jaegers, so you've had some training on both systems. The Marshal recruited you because your academy sim scores are off the charts. When compatibility isn't strong between pilots, we've found that greater technical ability can make it easier to maintain control of the Jaeger. That's why the Marshal selected you."

Jack waited a long moment, absorbing the information. It occurred to him briefly that Carter only told him what he wanted to hear- whatever it took to keep him motivated and committed. But an instant later he dismissed it. This woman of well-earned bravado didn't seem the type for platitudes or false promises. He wasn't expected to drift with Hanson. He wasn't expected to be compatible in any way shape or form. Thank god.

At the same time, a part of him ached. The hope of experiencing true drift extinguished itself in the space of a breath. His sessions with Simms had taught him what it felt like to move a Jaeger, but the Drift… no computer could simulate true drift. Some pilots claimed to know what the other was thinking before their copilot even formed the thought. Others reported that initiating the neural handshake led to shared memories. Some of the greatest pilots in history were family, or partners in life. Jack had neither, but he'd always wondered what it would be like to experience it for himself. Coming here with Pentecost had been his Hail Mary. Now- now, he knew that it had never really been on the table in the first place. His hope dwindled to nothing but a sharp ache in the hollow left behind.

"Sounds like you've been a big part of all this," he said finally. Carter nodded. "You proposed the list of candidates for the Marshal to review?" Another nod. "You said my scores were why Pentecost selected me. Why did _you_ recommend me?"

Carter smiled gently. "Because you were the last one at the Academy."

"Great," Jack muttered. He hadn't been the top choice after all. He'd been the _only_ choice.

"Let me finish," Carter insisted, sensing his disappointment. "You stayed behind after all the other Ranger candidates had moved on. You continued to train, even with the writing on the wall. Why?"

Jack eyed her warily. "I wasn't ready to give up."

"You have hope," Carter interpreted. "That's a quality the program needs, and it's what Bella responds to best. That's why I recommended you, above all the others on the list."

Jack blinked. She had recommended him specifically, after inferring all that from his linger at the Academy and some test scores. And the Marshal listened. A small voice in the back of his mind wondered if there wasn't some truth to what Jonas had claimed earlier. Unlike Hanson, however, Jack sure as hell didn't mind.

"Bella?" He not-so-subtly attempted to divert the course of the conversation away from himself.

Carter's cheeks flushed. "Banshee," she corrected. "It's- I call her that. Sometimes. We've... been through a lot together." He'd flustered her, and Jack felt himself relaxing in response.

"No, I like it," Jack said quickly. He did. "Would you prefer if I called her that too?"

"You shouldn't. Hanson doesn't like anything that makes his Jaeger sound like a teenage romance."

Jack smirked. "I'm getting the impression that it's not his Jaeger," he confided, earning himself another small smile. They stood there in the shadow of Belladonna Banshee, sparks dancing off her hull as workers soldered and welded. The quiet moment ended when someone hurried past them towards the gangway, unaware of their presence but a reminder that the world continued around them.

"Look, you're going to be evaluated in the _kwoon_ tomorrow, just like any other prospective pilot. Even though the scores don't matter, you should do your best to find compatibility. Banshee may not need it, but she'll always respond better to drift-compatible pilots. The only thing that's different between this evaluation and any other is that you won't get dismissed. The seat is yours, so don't let nerves hold you back. Try to make it work, okay?"

Jack nodded. "Okay. Thanks." He sighed. "I wish they'd told me all this before. I was… I was really worried for minute there."

Carter smirked. "Well, they can't have you getting cocky now, can they?"

"I don't think Bella could handle that much ego," Jack joked right back. Carter laughed lightly.

She extended her hand, which Jack grasped firmly. Her fingers were long and rough, their pads thick with calluses. They were warm, and just a little gritty. Not entirely unpleasant. "Good luck tomorrow," she offered.

"Even if I don't need it?"

" _Especially_ because you don't need it." Carter hefted her tool bag higher on her shoulder and sidled around Jack, heading back towards her crawlspace. "Catch you later, O'Neill."

"Yeah, you too." He watched her go, then slowly headed back towards his bunk, his step light. His earlier dread no longer dogged his footsteps- instead he felt almost light. Tomorrow guaranteed he would have to endure more of Jonas Hanson, but maybe- just maybe, he'd have a chance to talk to Dr. Carter again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Warnings: Some violence, language.**

* * *

The next morning, Jack forced himself to eat a small breakfast before heading to the _kwoon_. Carter had warned against nerves, but the small, fiery ball of anxiety weighing in his gut didn't care. It sat heavily as he stripped down to his sparring uniform of light pants and a sleeveless shirt that allowed for full motion of his arms and legs. He warmed up alone, well aware of the eyes on him, and the loud group around Hanson, pumping up his co-pilot.

When Marshal Pentecost arrived, all noise quieted, every occupant in the room straightening with respect. He surveyed them all, then turned his gaze to Jack and Hanson alone. "To your positions."

Jack claimed his staff and took up his stance across from Jonas, hefting the weapon in his grip. After spending years training with the Academy staves, this one felt foreign, rougher along its surface, but matched the weight ounce for ounce. He stared Hanson down across the mat. Around them, the packed _kwoon_ quieted to an intense silence.

Jack observed Hanson's stance with a critical eye. At first blush it seemed solid enough, but as he continued to watch Hanson shifted subtly, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he couldn't find his resting balance. In contrast Jack felt like a rock- nothing could upend him. Hanson itched to begin; Jack waited, and breathed.

"Begin!"

Jonas mistook Jack's calm for reticence. He lashed out with a flashy barrage that opened his guard in a myriad of opportunities for Jack to retaliate. Jack ignored the first two openings, emboldening Hanson further, then used the third to sweep Hanson's feet out from under him when he over-reached on an overhand swing. With his stick at Hanson's throat a second later, the kwoon seemed to freeze around him as the audience registered the quick turnabout.

"1-0," Pentecost announced, breaking the spell. Some of the audience were there to support him too, Jack realized as the crowd clapped while he and Hanson reset to their starting positions. Most of the pre-bout rowdiness disappeared in the presence of the presiding Marshal, but the fervor still lingered just below the surface.

"Set," Pentecost commanded. Jack chose a different form this time, shifting his hands into long form. He examined Jonas' pose and paused. The derisive humor in his copilot's gaze hardened into something sinister. Doubt trickled through Jack's mind once more. The abrupt shift in Hanson's disposition set off warning bells, adding tension to muscles that had previously been relaxed with confidence. Jack wanted to pilot, but was it worth it to drift with this guy?

This time when Jonas moved, he didn't waste a single ounce of energy on flashy swings. Jack cut against Hanson's jabs with long sweeps, maintaining distance as Hanson pressed closer. When their staves connected, Jack could feel the rigidity of Jonas' form, and almost smirked. Hanson had skill, but now he moved too stiffly, too eager to advance, to compensate for the sloppiness of the last bout.

Jack feinted an overhead blow, shifting his stance just enough to entice Hanson into a bind. Hanson took the bait, and stepped into the push to unbalance him, only to leave himself exposed when Jack simply let his staff slide in his grip until back in short form. Immediately he struck at Jonas' exposed shoulder, who rolled to narrowly avoid it. Jack followed, and when Hanson snapped back to his feet, he thrust the end of his staff towards Hanson's ribs.

Hanson dodged and trapped Jack's staff against his side, refusing to let Jack draw back to strike again. Hanson used his remaining hand to swing his staff towards Jack's head. Jack copied Hanson's gimmick and barely brought his own hand up in time to keep the staff from connecting with his skull. The smack of wood against his bare palm made him wince, a concession that elicited a smirk from his opponent.

Ignoring the sting in his hand, Jack was already moving. He brought his back leg up and snapped it out, halting just shy of Hanson's ear. The point was his, barely. Murmurs now echoed through the kwoon, a rumbling hum running counterpoint against the sound of blood rushing in Jack's ears. Pentecost called the reset, and when they broke apart Jack saw Hanson's grin darken: sharp teeth and a hungry gleam sparked in his opponent's eye.

Jack felt his competitive streak rise in response to the bitter glare directed at him. Carter said nothing rode on this match except a few shreds of compatibility. He had no idea whether rivalry was a good thing between copilots, but it was there, no doubt about it. Jack turned his back on Hanson to return to his position and took a moment to visualize his next strategy. He caught sight of Carter herself at the back of the crowd, observing the match stone-faced. Their eyes caught, and Jack nodded in greeting. One eyebrow lifted back at him, and Carter settled more comfortably against the padded bulkhead to watch the outcome of the final bout. She didn't look worried at all, which only boosted Jack's confidence more as he turned to face Jonas for the last time.

Jack's budding grin froze when he registered Hanson's eyes tracking between him and Carter. The spirit of competition hardened into something far more dangerous.

"Begin!" the Marshal barked, and this time Jack moved first. He surged across the mat with his staff poised for a forward strike. When Jonas lifted his own weapon to block, Jack swerved to the right, angling for Hanson's solar plexus. Jonas stumbled to avoid the blow, then took advantage of Jack's over-extension on the miss to drive his shoulder into Jack's rib cage, knocking him off balance.

Jack rolled with the momentum, gaining distance to retake his stance. Hanson stayed with him, striking low, then high, and high again as he drove deeper. Something snapped; the rivalry Jack sensed before became self-preservation in the face of Jonas' intensity. Hanson struck with all his strength, every blow sending tingles up Jack's arms. He managed to keep up, but it took too much of his focus ot avoid the strikes. He failed to spot Hanson's foot before it snaked around his ankle and pulled, tumbling Jack backwards onto the mat.

Hanson pinned him by straddling Jack's chest, leaning forward to avoid Jack's legs trying to trap him in a grapple, and driving his weight against the staff he pressed across Jack's throat. Jack froze, recognizing the bout was over, but Jonas pressed harder, face red. He ignored Jack's tap-out, and instinct took over when the Marshal delayed calling the bout. Jack tried to speak, but couldn't gather the breath to do so. Hanson's eyes looked straight through him, and in that moment Jack realized Jonas meant to kill him.

A sharp jolt raced down Jack's spine, giving him a desperate burst of energy. His training kicked in, and he let instinct and muscle memory take over. He bucked his hips upwards, unbalancing his enemy and catching Jonas' left wrist in both hands. Jack planted one foot and tucked his chin to one side, rolling them both towards Jonas' trapped arm. The staff scraped painfully against his throat but Jonas ultimately lost his grip. Jack shoved it out of reach and pinned Hanson to the ground with one arm, his free hand curled into a fist, ready to slam into Jonas' face.

"Rangers! The bout is over!" Pentecost finally stepped in, before Jack's fist could make contact. Jack froze immediately at the sound of the Marshal's voice. The world came back into focus, but he had to force himself to release Hanson. For a brief second, he wished the Marshal's bark had come just a second later. He swallowed against a sore throat as he rose to his feet, taking several long steps back to put distance between himself and Hanson before coming to attention in front of Pentecost.

Pentecost regarded him solemnly as Jonas rose. "No point," the Marshal declared. Jack thought he heard a muted shout of protest from Hanson's group, but the Marshal pretended not to notice. "Both Rangers overstepped the rules of the _kwoon_. Ranger Hanson!"

"Yes, sir!" Hanson responded, breathless from exertion. Jack didn't dare break attention to look at his opponent, but he didn't detect anything strange about Hanson's voice aside from the heavy breathing. No rage, no sign of the violence he'd just visited on his prospective new copilot.

"You will remember that the purpose of these exercises are _not_ to harm! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir!" Hanson didn't show an ounce of remorse.

"Ranger O'Neill!"

Jack straightened at the Marshal's address. "Yes, sir!" He might have been defending himself, but he had stepped outside the bounds of the _kwoon_ 's principles regardless, and expected a similar reprimand.

Pentecost surprised him. "Excellent showing. Your time at the Academy has served you well."

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir!"

"I am satisfied with today's results." Pentecost gave them both hard stares. "Both of you will report to Belladonna Banshee at 1400 hours for your first neural handshake."

"Yes, sir!" they chimed together. Pentecost dismissed them in short order and disappeared, leaving the crowd to follow suit in its own time. Hanson returned to the adulation of his cheer squad, leaving Jack to collect his staff alone. A search of the remaining crowd revealed only a bare wall where Carter has stood only minutes ago. Only Teal'c came over to make sure Jack was okay.

"You did a great job, man" the kwoon master clapped a hand on his shoulder. Jack eyed him warily.

"If you say so," he responded. "Should I be worried that my copilot wants to kill me? No one else seems to be." Not even Teal'c seemed all that concerned. Jack understood that the Marshal outranked everyone on base, including the kwoon master, but even so he would have expected some kind of intervention from the guy whose responsibilities included the safe use his kwoon.

"Hanson doesn't want to kill you," Teal'c assured him with a grin. "Hanson just gets carried away sometimes. Always has."

Jack accepted the towel Teal'c offered him and dried the sweat from his neck. The fibers poked the raw stripe on his throat where the staff had torn skin when they rolled. He checked for blood, and was relieved to find none. "Tell that to the stick he tried to throttle me with."

"Yeah, that wasn't his greatest showing," Teal'c hedged. "I would have stepped in if you hadn't taken care of it yourself."

"Uh huh." Jack didn't believe him. He'd only done what he did _because_ no one intervened. Maybe the Academy's kwoon masters spoiled him for the realities of an active duty kwoon. The space suddenly quieted around him, and Jack realized Jonas and his group had finally left. "Whatever."

Jack turned to leave, only for Teal'c to stop him with a hand on his shoulder. "Look here, Ranger." The easygoing smile no longer softened the kwoon master's features. Jack had his attention. "Start to finish that last bout was barely ten seconds. I realized there was a problem the same time you did. You reacted first. That's all."

Jack didn't respond. Teal'c retracted his hand, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I take safety very seriously. The fact you handled the situation as quickly as you did means you deserve to be here. You're good, O'Neill. It's time you start believing it."

The resentment building in Jack's chest slowly eased. Unlike Hanson, Teal'c seemed sincere. Just hearing someone else confirm that Jonas crossed a line took the edge off this aggression. Deflated, his shoulders sagged. Teal'c sensed the shift in his mood and the hand came back to his shoulder.

"You expected something different today?" Teal'c asked. "Choir of drift-compatible angels, maybe?"

Jack shrugged, wiping his face with the towel. "Not once I met Hanson, I didn't. I dunno, I guess… I wasn't expecting much, but I guess part of me still hoped I'd get something like the stories said."

"I'm sorry, man. It's tough." Teal'c said it as a man who knew from experience. How many pilots had he drifted with over the years?

"What was it like for you?" Jack asked. He watched Teal'c's face carefully, looking for any sign he'd stepped out of bounds. "When you found your pilot, did you get that choir of angels? When did you know you were compatible?"

Teal'c didn't shut him down like Jack half-expected he would. His gaze grew heavy, but his smile remained, even if more nostalgic than before. "The minute I met her," he replied. "I was one of the lucky ones."

Then Teal'c clapped him on the arm and pointed him to the locker room. "You better get moving, man. You've got a lot of work ahead of you."


	8. Chapter 8

**Warnings: None**

* * *

If Jack expected any kind of apology from Jonas regarding the _kwoon_ , he was left wholly disappointed. At 1400 hours he reported as ordered to Banshee's bay, and then proceeded to endure the most tedious of suit-ups he'd ever experienced. First came the circuitry layer, a full-body garment that resembled a neoprene wetsuit stamped with an intricate map of electrical circuits embedded in the material. The garment fit like a glove, clearly manufactured to his unique measurements, but the technicians still paused every five minutes to test the circuits and confirm he wasn't in any discomfort. Jack appreciated their consideration- under thirty pounds of armor plating any defect would be sorely felt on a five hour mission- but the incessant stream of commentary from Hanson's corner threatened to drive Jack to murder himself.

"Protocol changed, my ass!" Jonas exclaimed. His sharp tone bounced off the walls of the prep lab, stabbing Jack's eardrums with every word. If this were a combat drop, most of the suit up process would happen in the connpod itself, a significantly smaller chamber with less room to hide in. He groaned at the prospect.

"What's wrong?" his lead technician asked, picking up on Jack's discomfort immediately. "Too tight?"

"No," Jack replied quickly. "The suit's fine, I just-"

"Don't tell me what I already know!" Jonas shouted. Jack flinched.

The technician saw, and grimaced in commiseration. "You'll get used to it, sir. The first drop with a new copilot is always the worst."

"Yeah," Jack sighed. He looked around the lab, acutely aware of the people pressed in around him. Half a dozen loitered in and around his corner, and another three attended to Jonas. After prepping himself for so long at the Academy, this many people made him uncomfortable. Half of them didn't even look like they had anything to do. They were just standing- not just standing, Jack realized when Jonas' voice rose again. Avoiding. The more people who attended to him, the less were needed for Hanson, and apparently none of them were eager to face that ordeal. Jack was also suddenly aware that the three techs assisting Jonas were largest guys in the room.

"Actually," Jack told his lead, "I have an itch." He reached for his outer thigh, close enough to his knee that to inspect the site would require almost complete removal of the suit.

"What kind of itch?" a woman asked, noting her pad eagerly.

"What?"

Another two technicians stepped forward, eyes alight with enthusiasm. "Does it feel like an insect crawling, or a tag poking you?"

 _Insects_? Now it did. "Uh…"

"Is it a skin itch, or does it feel like the manufacture of the suit?"

Jack blinked. The lead technician continued to adjust the suit, intent on his own task. Jack leaned towards him. "Which would take require more people to assist?" he muttered.

The technician's hands stilled as the words sank in. His eyes lifted for the barest of moments. "Suit itch."

Jack nodded. "It kind of feels like something in the suit is poking-"

"All right, guys, let's reset." The lead technician turned, and Jack saw his nametape for the first time, identifying the bespectacled man as Sergeant Siler. "Anwar, Rogers, get the circuitry layer off and do another inspection for tags and splinters." The two itch women stepped forward.

"Thanks," Jack addressed to both of them. He caught Siler's eye as they moved in, and received a nod and conspiratorial wink. "I'm sorry to be such a bother…"

"It's good you spoke up," Anwar assured him. "One pilot in the Lima Shatterdome once tried to ignore a poke in her suit and the doctors eventually found a 3-inch hole in her arm. You Rangers try to be so tough sometimes you're your own saboteurs."

It took another hour to get out of the suit, inspect it, and reapply, but it was worth it to feel the tension bleed out of the room. Jonas eventually quieted, when his captive audience became engaged with other tasks, and Jack was able to actually chat with the rest of his team. The added time passed pleasantly, until the time finally came to enter the connpod.

His boots clanked heavily against the deck while he and Hanson followed the corridor towards Banshee's helm. When they reached the open hatch Jonas shoved inside first. Any moment of awe Jack might have imagined he'd get to have on his first drop was a non-starter.

Siler and Jonas' lead tech followed a few paces behind them to complete the final check list. Hanson made a beeline for the right side chair. Jack let him- he never had a preference on joint drops, and had been running solo for so long that it didn't matter where he sat, so long as he was behind a wheel. Siler turned him away from Jonas so that he could run a careful eye over Jack's armor in better light.

"I really am sorry about all the trouble earlier," Jack murmured low enough that Hanson wouldn't hear.

"I appreciate what you did back there," Siler responded. "A lot of people have learned to let Hanson run his course, due to his service record. It would have been easy for you to just keep quiet." He ducked his head to check an armor clasp under Jack's arm, then straightened once more. "How's it feel?"

"Good." Jack bent his knees briskly. "Really good."

Siler nodded. "Then it's time to hook in."

"It's too tight!" Hanson accused sharply, severing the short moment of peace. Jack glanced over, and immediately regretted it. Over by first chair, Jonas lunged deeply against the tightness of his drive suit, hoping to settle the fit into more comfortable niches. "What the hell did you guys do to it?"

Before Hanson's poor team could respond, Jack spoke up. "The drive suit is manufactured to your specifications, Hanson. There's literally nothing they could have done to it." Jonas glared at him for derailing his rant, but Jack steamrolled past it. "I'm sure it just feels that way after not wearing it for so long."

Jack ignored the glare Jonas sent his way and clicked his boots into the latches in the floor. He pulled his attention away from Hanson to give Siler a nod. The Sergeant returned the nod and moved to leave. With an irritated wave of his hand, Jonas released his own man as well. As the technicians cleared the connpod, Jonas turned his attention fully on Jack.

"All right," Jonas barked, addressing Jack for the first time since they entered the prep lab. "I don't know how you were trained at the Academy, but until I know where you're at, just follow my lead. I don't need a loose cannon going off script on me. Got it?"

Jack abandoned any attempt to assure him that the Academy curriculum hadn't changed since Hanson himself graduated, and words of simple acknowledgement lodged in his throat, barbed with sarcasm. He managed to flash asimple thumbs up in Jonas' direction. Wordlessly he activated the drive interface. The metal panels beneath his feet separated and tucked themselves away, engaging the pistons and gears that connected his movements to Banshee's systems. Mechanical arms lowered and secured to his arms and wrists, lifting him into the air. This much was familiar. Hanson's whoop of enthusiasm was not.

"Here we go!" Hanson hollered.

"Looking good, gentlemen," Tendo said over the intercom. "Ready to initiate your first ever neural bridge, O'Neill?"

"Oh, he's ready!" Hanson called back confidently, before Jack could even open his mouth to respond. Jack took a deep breath.

"Guess so," he chimed in with false enthusiasm. "Let's do this."

"On my mark!" Hanson counted down. "3… 2… 1…"

Jack closed his eyes. At first he felt nothing, but before the first inklings of disappointment sparked, the force of Hanson's presence hit him between the eyes with the force of a freight train. He grunted, struggling to gather his wits under the onslaught. He'd been briefed on the drift, spoken with pilots who had first hand experience. All of them cited a merging of consciousness between the two pilots. Memories, emotions, experiences were all shared and intermingled between the two. Jack had been concerned what he might find in Hanson's mind, but this was nothing like what he'd heard. Hanson's presence was a force unto itself, weighing Jack down and making even the labor of breathing herculean.

Jack fought for the surface, and found space to exist beside Hanson. When he opened his eyes, he remained in the connpod, with Hanson a constant pressure between his ears. Now, his disappointment rose, but he tamped it down. Carter had warned him; this was no true drift, but if her changes to Banshee did the trick, it wouldn't matter.

"Oookay," Tendo chimed in Jack's ear. "Bridge is established." His words said little, but his tone spoke volumes. Whatever his readouts showed him, it wasn't anything like the numbers they'd hoped to get. Jack could have warned them about the lousy compatibility within moments of meeting Jonas, let alone after the debacle in the _kwoon_. Tendo paused on the comms to converse with someone on his end; while it was likely the Marshal, Jack wondered if Carter was there too, to oversee the results of her hard work. Maybe she was the one telling Tendo to roll with it.

"Right as rain!" Hanson boomed. "Yippie-ki-yay, am I right?" His voice lanced through Jack's skull like a megaphone piped directly into his helmet. Oh, yeah, this was _great_.

"Five by five," Jack concurred finally, casting an eye on his readouts. Usually he could interpret his sensors in a glance, but now he struggled to make sense of them. Having two people in his brain muddled what had been second nature in the Academy. He kept the observation to himself before Hanson could point out that his Academy training was garbage anyway, compared to _real_ experience.

"What do you say we get this show on the road?" Jack suggested. He needed to know if Banshee would respond; if she didn't, he wanted out, as soon as possible.

"I'm ready if you are," Hanson returned. "LOCCENT?"

"Proceed, gentlemen."

Jack took a deep breath, preparing himself. A phantom tug pulled at his arm. Puzzled, he glanced down and found nothing there but his own extremity.

"Your right arm, idiot," Hanson growled. "Lift it." The phantom tug had been Jonas raising his own arm, Banshee's attempt to respond echoed into Jack's drivesuit. Gritting his teeth, Jack raised his right arm, and was immediately halted by the tremendous drag. For a heartbeat, Jack thought the interface had locked, but slowly, they managed to get one arm lifted, palm out like a crossing guard. Jack quivered under the strain, and this time when he felt the pull on his left arm, he immediately followed its suggestion and repeated the motion on both arms were up and level at chest height. Clenching his fists, he and Hanson curled both arms into a boxing stance.

"Well done, Banshee!" Tendo crowed. "Looking good!"

Jack grunted under his breath. "If you say so…"

"Lighten up, Jackie-boy! Once the adrenaline gets going in battle it'll be like a hot knife through butter!" Hanson's assurance was countered by his discernable shortness of breath, proof that he was not unaffected by the exertion. "Don't know about you, but I feel like a walk in the park."

Jack felt Banshee lurch when their convoy rolled into motion towards the open bay doors. Gritting his teeth, he settled in for the ordeal ahead. He was in, whether he liked it or not.


	9. Chapter 9

**Warnings: None**

* * *

That evening, Jack followed the yellow line to the commissary on legs like jelly. The strain of piloting with Hanson was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He gathered a heaping tray and paused briefly to scan for an available seat. He spotted Hanson almost immediately, and instantly regretted it. While Hanson's back was to Jack, Kowalsky sat across from Jonas, and caught sight of him quickly. He nodded towards Jack, giving him only seconds to find an alternative place to sit before he'd be roped into sitting with the one man he didn't want to spend any more time with today.

"O'Neill!" A shout called out over the crowd. Jack looked for his savior, and found Daniel Jackson and Teal'c waving him over. Jack didn't hesitate.

"Thanks for the save," he said, sliding into the open seat across from them.

Daniel looked at him in confusion. "You're... welcome? I guess?"

"I was just telling Daniel about the match today," Teal'c told him.

"Yeah, sounds like it got a little intense," Daniel agreed.

"That's one way to put it…"

"Ah, hey Sam!" Daniel interrupted, his gaze catching on a figure over Jack's shoulder. Jack turned, and grinned at Dr. Carter. "Care to join us?"

Carter slowed to a stop when she reached their little group, and scanned the three of them. Her eyes caught slightly on Jack before moving on to survey the close quarters of the others around them. The people eating nearest to them watched her right back. "Not tonight," she decided finally. The watchers returned to their meals. "Thanks, though." She offered Daniel a plaintive smile. "Maybe next time."

"We'll hold you to that," Teal'c assured her. "Take it easy."

Dr. Carter nodded and moved on, ultimately finding a secluded seat towards the far end of the row, nearest the trash bins. When she settled into a seat, Jack felt the tension lift around him. After a moment, Jack turned back to Daniel and Teal'c. "Okay, what was that about?"

"What, Sam? She's cool," Teal'c assured him.

"I agree," Jack responded. "But why did I get the impression that not everyone does?"

Daniel and Teal'c paused, exchanging a worried glance. "Maybe we're not the best ones to tell you…" Daniel hedged.

"Well, no one else is going to. Hanson was a jerk to her the day I got here, but I figured that was just him being… well, him." Jack lowered his voice. "But now I'm getting the feeling that Jonas isn't the exception."

"He isn't," Teal'c confirmed. "Unfortunately, a lot of people share his antagonism."

Jack set down his fork. "Why?"

"May Day," came the simple response.

Just like it had in the elevator, the reference sent a chill down Jack's spine. This time, the shudder was amplified by what he'd learned the past several days- Banshee wasn't combat ready. If they were sent out to meet a Kaiju, they'd be shredded. Their reaction time was tortoise-like, and the drag… the effort it took to move Banshee at all left no room for anything else. Jack didn't even want to know what it would be like trying to activate weapons while trying to take a step.

Jack forced his thoughts back to his companions. May Day had been a devastating blow to the PPDC, but in the end, the culprit had been Athos, plain and simple. "If they're saying Carter's responsible for the Breach, I swear to god…" Jack's wry, half-joking response- they couldn't really think that, did they?- was met with unamused looks from both his tablemates. He bit back a sigh. _Great_. More details Hanson hadn't deigned to share with him. "What am I missing?"

"Belladonna Banshee was on downtime for repairs," Teal'c told him bluntly. Jack nodded. When he finally received his datapad, he had done more research on Banshee's history, and the date of May Day had coincided with a stretch of scheduled downtime. It was why Hiroshi's Saber had been deployed with Whiskey Blue instead of a more seasoned Jaeger team for such a critical event. "What the reports don't mention is that the repairs were completed ahead of time. Mostly because Carter assisted. Banshee was ready to deploy."

Jack froze, fork halfway to his mouth. He returned his bite of spaghetti to his tray, turning all his focus to Teal'c. "Why wouldn't they have mentioned that in the reports?"

"Because Banshee never made it out of the gate," Daniel chipped in, his voice suddenly dark with resentment. "The pilots couldn't complete the neural handshake. Banshee was dead in the water." He pushed his food around his tray forcefully. "A lot of people think that having Banshee in the fight would have been a game changer."

"More than that," Teal'c elaborated, "San Diego was on the way to being the place to be for Jaeger pilots. We had Whiskey Blue, Hiroshi's Sabre, and Belladonna Banshee, with Manhattan Bombshell weeks away from transferring in. Top of the line Jaegers with pilots to match. Now, we're down to two Jaegers, with one being the oldest active machine in the fleet and the other inoperable due to lack of compatible pilots. We're a graveyard walking."

Jack shook his head incredulously. "And they blame Carter?" Both of them looked at him like he'd grown two heads. "How the hell could they blame a lack of neural bridge on an engineer?"

The two men exchanged a curious glance. "She wasn't chief engineer at the time, man," Teal'c told him slowly. "Who did they say you were replacing?"

Jack paused, suddenly feeling the pieces clicking into place. Carter's fondness for Banshee, her athleticism when climbing out of the crawlspace the night before. Hanson's blatant antagonism towards her being an engineer. His snide remarks hadn't been for the profession, but for her no longer being a pilot. "Carter piloted Banshee," he surmised, more to himself than the benefit of his audience. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Hell," he cursed.

"Hanson made it very clear who was responsible for the lack of neural bridge," Daniel spat venomously.

"And unfortunately the connpod readouts confirmed it," Teal'c reported. "Hanson calibrated easily. Carter choked."

"They _say_ she choked," Daniel countered, pointing his fork towards his friend. "You don't believe it any more than I do." He turned back to Jack. "The officially unofficial diagnosis was exhaustion, due to her pulling double-duty on Banshee's repairs. Rumor has it that they extended her an opportunity to continue piloting. Same rumor says she declined, and requested a permanent transfer to engineering."

"Once she transferred, the rumors were truth," Teal'c explained. "In the minds of a lot of people here, she choked and helped kill four good pilots, then jumped ship to engineering."

"She's been a pariah ever since," Daniel muttered, shooting conspicuous glares towards the personnel carousing at a nearby table. "Guess it's easier to shun someone than to consider that what happened to Sam could have happened to any one of them."

Jack regarded both of them curiously. "You two don't seem to be joining in on the blame game."

"Sam's my friend," Daniel replied sharply. "She's the only pilot to ever take my work seriously, and is still the kindest person I've ever met. I don't care what happened on May Day- no one deserves to be treated the way this base treats her."

Jack's gaze slid to Teal'c. "And you? You look like you've got a different reason." As a former pilot, he likely had an insight Daniel wouldn't share. If he did, Jack desperately wanted to hear it.

For a long moment, Teal'c didn't look like he was going to oblige. Finally, the large man pushed his tray aside and leaned forward intently. "No one knows what happened in that connpod except for Banshee's pilots. Telemetry confirms who calibrated first, but drifting is a two-way street, and there's a lot about it that can't be captured on a read-out. And I find it more than a little strange that Hanson hasn't been able to drift with anyone since."

Daniel barked a mirthless laugh. "But don't worry, they blame that on Sam too," he drawled. "She has Jaeger in her blood, so Hanson apparently got used to a higher class of pilot, and no one's been able to measure up enough to drift with him."

After that, they refused to say anything else, and Jack was more than okay with that. What he had so far threatened to send his brain into the stratosphere. He processed the information while he ate, and the more he thought about it, the more he didn't like it. The villain Jonas apparently painted her as didn't match the Carter who'd spoken with him the night before, who had stopped what she was doing to answer his questions and ultimately assuage his insecurities. It stank like a sack of kaiju dung.

If what Jonas claimed about Carter held even the slightest merit, why hadn't Jack heard about it? It seemed impossible that news like that hadn't made it outside the walls of the Shatterdome. No matter what Hanson claimed about the relationship between Carter and Pentecost, not even the Marshal could have saved her if the Corps deemed Carter was in any way responsible for May Day.

When he walked down to Bay 3 that night, Jack steamed. The frustration of the drop, his exhaustion from fighting the immense resistance when trying to pilot, Hanson's incessant shouting in his head and now _this_ all boiled and coalesced into anger and resentment on Carter's behalf, and his own. Once there, he asked the first person he saw and was directed to the same panel he'd found her under the night before. This time, however, she was still climbing into her coveralls, saving him the need to shout himself hoarse to get her attention.

When her eyes caught on him, the tight smile she gave him lacked all warmth. "Back for more cliff notes?" she quipped humorlessly.

"No," he said. Suddenly uncomfortable, Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. "I, ah… I've gotten some new information."

Carter nodded stiffly. "Figured you would have by now," she replied. "Doesn't usually take long." She slipped her arms into the sleeves of her jumpsuit and zipped up the front, securing herself within. "Don't worry about it, O'Neill. Talking to me isn't good for your rep; you had a good showing in the _kwoon_ , you should keep it up."

She hefted the strap of her tool bag over her shoulder, and turned to leave. Jack grabbed her wrist to keep her from leaving. "Wait!" Carter froze, whipping to face him. Her eyes flickered to his hold on her wrist, and Jack dropped it immediately. "Sorry, I'm sorry. Just- that's not why I'm here."

Carter lifted her released hand to rake her fingers through her short hair. "Then what do you want?"

"To tell you that I don't believe them." Jack studied her face, which darkened as she let her gaze skitter away guiltily. "What?"

"They're not wrong," she said quietly.

"You're saying they're right?"

"No. But they're not wrong." Carter shifted uncomfortably on her feet, but declined to say anything further.

"I… I don't even know what that means," Jack confessed.

Carter shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I meant what I said, O'Neill. Spending time with me is toxic, and piloting Banshee will be easier if Hanson doesn't resent you for taking sides. You should keep your distance."

Jack stepped forward. "I don't care. Hanson tried to kill me this morning! Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough for him, and what the hell is the point? Everyone on base treats him like royalty! He acts like he's God's gift to the Jaeger program and stomps on everyone else to do it, including you!"

Dr. Carter's cheeks flushed. Her eyes hardened and Jack knew he'd made a mistake. Any softness he'd witnessed the night before dissolved into a steely gaze, her spine ramrod straight and shoulders stiff with discomfort. He's screwed up. Big time. _Jesus_. Why had he even come here? Instead of giving her a vote of confidence he'd stomped on her too. Why'd he have to open his big mouth?

"You done?"

Jack swallowed. "Yeah."

"Good." Without another word, Carter moved to the open panel and slipped inside, leaving Jack standing alone on the catwalk.

Jack sighed bitterly, giving himself a mental kick to the pants. "Way to go, O'Neill."


	10. Chapter 10

**Warnings: Mild Language**

* * *

The next day, Jack's attempts to drift with Jonas didn't go any better. The memory of Carter's stiff reaction the night before distracted him to the point where even Hanson took notice. If his copilot could tell it was Carter on Jack's mind, Jack didn't know, but considering his head stayed on his shoulders when they finished for the day, he didn't think Hanson made the connection. On legs trembling from fatigue, Jack went to the commissary, but couldn't eat. His stomach churned. Last night's visit to Carter replayed in his mind. The echo of her chilled distance soured his appetite, and after staring at his tray for five minutes he got up and dumped its contents into the garbage on his way out of the mess hall.

Going to Carter the night before, he'd meant to assure her that he didn't care what had happened on May Day. This Shatterdome might be his home for the foreseeable future, and while he could honor their losses as if they were his own, he wasn't about to adopt the misgivings spawned by the rumors Jonas spread. But he hadn't actually said any of that, had he? Had he really made it all about him and his own beef with Jonas? _Yeah, Carter, I totally get what it's like to be a pariah. Three days has made me an expert._ Jack grunted. He'd wanted to offer his friendship, not more woe.

Determined to give Carter her space, Jack left the commissary with the intention of sleeping it off in his barracks. But when he roused from his self-pitying thoughts he realized his feet had carried him right back to the familiar walls of Bay 3. A warm flush spread across his chest when he caught sight of Carter, curled up in an empty overlook along the catwalk facing Banshee. A laptop sat open on the grate in front of her, propped up on the toe of one boot as she typed, her knee tight against her chest with the other leg tucked underneath her. She glanced up at his approach, arched a single eyebrow in greeting, then turned back to her work. She didn't object when he settled onto the catwalk next to her. He sat in silence for a while, but eventually the urge to speak won out, again.

"Did you watch today?" he asked.

Blue eyes darted towards him then danced away, a small grimace confirming what he already knew. "Yes," she confirmed.

"Didn't go so well."

"Better than the other candidates," Carter pointed out. "Combined."

Jack snorted, picking at a rough edge of his fingernail. "That doesn't say much, does it." Carter didn't respond, her fingers continuing to tap against the keyboard. "It's not natural," he said finally.

"It's not."

They sat in awkward silence for several long moments. "I'm sorry about last night." He looked at her from the corner of his eye, and saw her shrug, returning her chin to the top of her knee. "I didn't mean to unload on you like that. I just…"

His stomach fluttered nervously. What the hell was he even trying to say? Carter beat him to the punch. "Don't worry about it," she said, shifting topics seamlessly. "Do you think you can describe what it felt like?"

Jack inhaled, wincing. "Yeah. Like wading through wet cement. That's chest deep." He rolled his sore shoulders at the memory of that suffocating drag.

Carter processed the information, then jutted her chin towards the rapidly shifting screen. "I've been reviewing the data from your two drops so far. Here," she pulled up a graph of shifting values, vertical bars falling and rising steeply and abruptly in a dance of colors. "See that?" She pointed at the screen, where the bars dropped to almost nonexistent then surged back towards middling height. "That's a graphical representation of the neural bridge. It continues to fluctuate throughout the run. That's why it feels so unnatural." She pulled up another graph for comparison. "That's Manhattan from their last combat drop. See the difference?"

Jack peered at the graph. He hadn't spoken to Kowalsky or Ferretti much since meeting them, but somehow the steady bars on the screen reminded Jack of them. Solid, implacable… a far cry from any word he'd use to describe the wildly fluctuating graph of his bridge with Hanson. Jack's heart plummeted, staring wistfully at Manhattan's read out. Their bars shifted some, but never lower than Banshee's highest point. "Well. That's just great," he grumbled, grinding the heel of his palm against his brow, desperately trying to keep the sudden damp in his eyes hidden. Looking at the two graphs, it was hard to see how his and Jonas' could ever hope to resemble Manhattan's.

"It's not the best," Carter conceded. "But I think I can make further adjustments to make it more stable."

"But it won't look like that," Jack ground out, gesturing to Manhattan's smooth, undulating movement.

Carter sat back, and looked him in the eye. "No. Not by any means I can facilitate. It's possible one of you could experience a significant personality shift that could-" she trailed off at Jack's disdainful glare. "I didn't say it was likely," she defended herself quickly. "Just that it was possible."

"So then why bother? If it's not going- if we're not ever going to…" _Damn it_. His voice shriveled in his throat, hoarse at the prospect of constantly facing that crushing weight every time he stepped into Banshee's connpod. He shouldn't have come here, he realized suddenly. He was exhausted, frustrated, and missing the Academy. He hadn't been challenged like this in a long time, and less than a week of piloting with Jonas left him feeling like a failure- a feeling he was not accustomed to. He felt raw, and vulnerable, and the last thing Carter needed was his feelings of inadequacies.

"Hey," she said quietly, nudging his shoulder gently. "These readings may not be the best, but they're more than we've gotten from anyone else Hanson has partnered with. This is just our baseline. With this information, I can update my matrices and reduce the drag some. It won't be perfect, but it can get better." She paused. "Maybe you could help."

Jack cleared his throat, wiping surreptitiously at his eyes. "Help?" Curiosity niggled at him. "Help how?" He had the basic science training all recruits received, but his specialty was weapons, not drive interface tech. He'd be useless with what she was working on.

"During the run, if you can pinpoint the times where the going is especially tough, we can touch base afterwards to see what the numbers look like at each of the events. If I can see _exactly_ what's happening, it would help me know where to focus on."

Jack blinked. "Really?" He looked at Dr. Carter fully, twisting to face her. "You really think it'll help?"

"I do," she returned. Her eyes were warm. "There's only room for improvement."

"Okay," Jack agreed. "Yeah, absolutely." He faced front again, suddenly breathless. A load lifted off his shoulders. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He heard a smile in her voice and looked over to find a smirk curling her lips. "Hanson won't like it if he finds out," she warned.

Jack's lips spread in a mirror of her grin. "What a shame."


	11. Chapter 11

**Warnings: Violence (of the bar room brawl variety)**

* * *

Walking into the commissary a week later, Jack's arms and legs threatened to collapse on him. Every night since Dr. Carter agreed to help him, he'd met her on the same catwalk under Banshee's right arm. Carter claimed she was making strides. The graphs backed those claims: the bars weren't quite so jagged anymore, but they still rose and fell steeply. However, in the connpod it hadn't made a single ounce of difference. After a week, the immense resistance fought them at every turn. Jack still wasn't used to it, and he doubted he ever would be. He resigned himself to feeling trapped in the connpod, and wooden outside of it.

He spotted Dr. Carter almost immediately. A swath of empty seats surrounded her, and she ate with her head down and shoulders tight, discouraging visitors. Jack let his gaze linger for just a moment more, before he caught sight of Manhattan's team sitting off to the left. At Kowalsky's nod, he moved to join them. "Hey, guys," Jack greeted, sliding down onto the bench facing them. They lifted their chins at him in response, before Kowalsky perked up.

"You and Hanson were looking sharp today," Charlie told him, as Ferretti dug back into the large mound of mashed potatoes piled onto his tray. "I'd say it was your best run yet."

Jack pegged him with a look, and saw the man wasn't mocking him. An open gaze looked back at him, with honest support. Jack shrugged. "If you say so." It felt the same as the day before, and he wouldn't know the numbers until he met up with Dr. Carter later. He didn't bother to say so, though.

Kowalsky and Ferretti seemed decent guys, as far as Jack could tell from the week he'd known them, but they were so frequently in Jonas' company that he couldn't quite bring himself to trust them with the fact that he'd been meeting with Carter. Jack refused to put her in Hanson's line of fire, and honestly the less he gave his copilot to gripe about, the better.

 _Speak of the devil_ , Jack thought to himself when Jonas slid in beside him. Jack suppressed a shudder of irritation. During the ten minute walk back to the Shatterdome that afternoon, Hanson used the time to pick apart Jack's technique, one insult spilling out after another. The sympathetic looks he'd gotten from the guys coming out of LOCCENT on his way to the locker room reminded him that the comms had been wide open the whole time. He'd wished then that he hadn't remained silent throughout the tirade, but he had done so for one reason only. That day marked the third anniversary of the May Day Massacre.

He'd noted the date when Teal'c and Daniel had told him the truth of Carter's situation. The days since had grown increasingly more tense, and while Carter had met with him the night before as promised, she'd said very little, and they'd ended early. Now he could only hope that Jonas would simply continue his rant from the connpod. Jack sensed from the smell of booze in the air around him that he wouldn't be so lucky.

Pilots weren't supposed to drink on base, since they could be called to service at a moment's notice. The mechanics the next table over weren't similarly compelled. They listed slightly while their cups clanked together in a sloppy toast. Watching them consumed Jack's focus for a long moment until his vision was eclipsed by a grinning Jonas who leaned in to wrap his arm around Jack's neck in rough playfulness. The familiar scent of hops wafted over Jack in a fresh wave, and he had to keep his face from showing his disgust and resentment. Of course he'd been drinking. Jack could hardly be surprised but it burned. If caught Hanson would be on forced downtime for three days minimum, and while Jack could personally see the appeal of not climbing into the connpod tomorrow, they couldn't afford the delay. Carter needed as much data as they could give her, and they didn't have the luxury of waiting 72 hours while the alcohol cleared his system. Besides that, Jack didn't look forward to joining minds with a hungover copilot.

Jack turned his attention to his tray, buttoning up his anger and resentment. Jonas didn't seem to notice. "Great day, isn't it?" Hanson crowed, just a hair shy of sincere.

Jack locked gazes with Kowalsky, surprised to find the man as unimpressed as he himself felt. "Not sure many would agree with you on that one," Charlie told his friend. From what Teal'c had said, Manhattan wasn't at the Shatterdome when May Day happened, but they must have walked in on the aftermath, and it seemed to have made an impression. "You shouldn't be drinking, man."

"Of course not," Jonas chirped. "Wouldn't dream of it!" He beamed widely, laughing. "Come on man, lighten up! It's the one day a year when the brass turns the other cheek on the booze. I gotta take it when I can get it." Hanson elbowed Jack's arm just as he was lifting his cup for a drink, sloshing blue energy drink into his half-eaten vegetable medley. "We should get some into our new friend here! He could stand to loosen up a little!"

Jack didn't bother to respond. He should have sat with Carter. He fought the urge to turn and look at her amongst the empty seats; if he did, Jonas would turn and look as well, and he would never forgive himself for turning Hanson loose on Carter. He kept his eyes down as he piled his fork high with vegetables now dripping with energy drink. Hanson nudged him again, knocking the peas, corn and carrots back to the tray. Jack froze. _Do not punch your drunk copilot. Do not-_

"Watch this," Hanson urged expectantly, jerking his chin towards Dr. Carter's table with a gleeful gleam in his eye. Jack craned his neck and spotted another of Hanson's fan club, a Manhattan mechanic named Hans Klepper, moving through the quieting crowds with his eyes on Carter, while his buddies trailed behind him with drinks in hand. They paused in the center of the bay, and Klepper raised his glass, but his glare stabbed daggers at Carter's hunched back.

"Let's raise another glass!" Klepper called, to the tune of over a dozen cheers as arms lifted their drinks high. "To my brother, Franz, who perished with his copilot Tahno Yuri when Hiroshi's Sabre fell to Athos three years ago this very day!"

At a second nudge from Hanson, Jack lifted a heavy glass. From what he could see through the forest of cups, the only one not joining in on the toast was Carter. Declining to toast would only make her more noticeable, but Jack knew that with Klepper still glaring at her, raising her own glass would only invite further antagonism. Carter stared at her tray, combing through her vegetable medley without taking a bite, each pass of her fork growing more and more tense. Jack sensed the same as she did. The somber toast was about to take an even darker turn.

"And to the rest of us, who will likely be gone soon!" Glasses remained up, but the room fell silent at the addendum. There was a line between somber and sordid, and Klepper had passed it. The sudden quiet didn't slow him a bit. "Come, now! We're a dying breed! We should celebrate! Today is the anniversary of our death knell. It started with the May Day Massacre, and every day brings us closer to the brink. Isn't that right, Carter?"

Now all eyes flew to Carter. She'd risen as soon as Klepper continued his toast, and froze in the aisle with her tray in hand. Jack could see her running through her options. She chose as he would have, by ignoring Klepper's call and and moving away from his group towards the nearest exit.

"Oh, come on, Sam, don't be like that!" Hanson called out. "He's just letting off steam."

"Back off, Hanson," Jack warned. The atmosphere shifted drastically, taking on an electrical charge. It wouldn't take much to spark the tempers brewing around them. Every gaze in the room bounced between Klepper and Doctor Carter, souring as the mechanic's negativity spread.

"Yeah, Sam," Klepper picked up the taunt. "I lost my brother three years ago! You haven't forgotten, have you?" He leered menacingly. "I sure haven't." He stepped towards her. The drink in his hand wasn't his first if the slur in his voice was any indication, but kept his feet well enough. Carter would know how to defend herself as a Ranger, but Klepper boasted about fifty over Carter, and for all Jack knew Dr. Carter hadn't trained since she last stepped in Banshee. If she'd lost her edge, Klepper could easily overpower her.

Carter seemed to sense the ever-growing animosity and resumed her path towards the hatch. A man wearing Manhattan's colors rose from his seat to cut her off. Dr. Carter's steps slowed, then reversed several paces to maintain the distance between them. Klepper continued to move in behind her. Jack rose to his own feet, as did several others. None of the faces around him expressed any concern for Carter. The Shatterdome was tired of hurting, tired of grieving, of barely breaking even against the Kaiju. These people couldn't fight the real culprits spilling out of the Breach, so they found a softer target.

"We're not saying it's your fault," Klepper continued, closing in on Carter, "but if you hadn't choked so spectacularly, maybe a few more of us would be alive. You ever think about that?"

Carter's grip tightened on the edges of her tray. Rather than face the milling mob at her back, she decided to take her chances with the lone man barring her escape. Klepper's face reddened with rage.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" He grabbed her by the arm, and yanked her to face him. Carter reacted in an instant. She turned with the grab and slammed the flat of her tray into the side of Klepper's head, sending food and utensils flying. The tin tray bent upon impact, and sent Klepper reeling. The lone man barring her way before closed in as soon as she turned her back. Carter anticipated the sneak attack. She pivoted and threw the ruined tray in his face. The man's hands lifted to catch it, and Carter darted in with two swift jabs to the torso. The first blow found the sweet spot that instantly winded him, followed by a sharp elbow that sent the man sprawling backwards. He stayed there, clutching his chest and gasping for breath.

Jack pushed against the crowd, trying to reach her. The other spectators resisted, unwilling to relinquish their vantage points. Over their shoulders he saw Klepper straighten, wiping blood from his nose as he turned towards Carter with murder in his eyes. He took a breath to call a warning, but Carter moved before he could say a word. Klepper's punch overbalanced him, so eager was he to get the drop on her. Carter deftly dodged the blow to trap Klepper's wrist in both hands and jerked him further off balance.

Hanz barely managed to hop the foot she stuck out to tangle his own, and freed his wrist. He wound up for another blow- and dropped almost instantly. Carter's boot connected with his ribs so quickly Jack almost didn't see it. Jack blinked, and then took in the dead calm set in her expression. The nights spent under Banshee's arm made it easy to forget that Carter was anything more than an engineer. Now there was no denying it. Jack had worried about her edge- Samantha Carter had been raised in this very Shatterdome, recruited early to pilot the greatest Jaeger ever made. Nothing on Earth could dull an edge like that.

Klepper's friends moved in then, and now Jack began to shove his way into the fight, now counting five against one. Two went to get a wheezing Hanz back on his feet, and the remaining three lunged for Carter. Jack pushed and shoved his way through the crowd just as the first of Klepper's men reached Dr. Carter. Carter blocked his kick with a shin check and then snapped her foot up towards his chin. His head snapped back, and his legs melted out from under him, senseless.

"Hey!" Jack barked. Klepper took a step back when he realized the shout was directed at him and not his victim. In the end, it didn't matter who his target was- Klepper just wanted to hit something. He swung his fist at Jack's head, who ducked and swept out his leg, returning Klepper to the steel deck. Hanz's head clanged against the hard surface, which Jack followed up with a sharp fist to the mechanic's chest.

Klepper gasped and rolled pitifully onto his side. He made no move to rise. Jack turned back to the main fight to find Carter had disabled two of her opponents, earning time to catch her breath. "Carter!" Her eyes flew to him, and he stuck out his hand. "Let's go!"

She clasped his wrist, but a new opponent caught her other hand before Jack could pull her from the ring. Jack immediately let her go, giving her hand back to defend herself. Carter tucked herself into a ball and rolled, taking her attacker with her. Jack saw her curl her legs up to set for an omoplata before a fist flying towards his face consumed his entire focus.

Jack didn't recognize the face glaring at him from behind the sucker punch. More people joined the fight, limiting the space they had to maneuver him. Their only grace was that many didn't seem particularly incensed against him or Dr. Carter. The gladiator fight sparked by Klepper's rage dissolved into an all-out brawl as fists swung left and right, not caring who hit who. Dark expressions morphed into an embittered glee as they channeled their hurt and grief into sloppy bruises and forming bruises.

Dodging a second swing from his unscrupulous opponent, Jack returned the favor by thrusting his knee into their groin. The beefy man dropped, hands cupping his crotch in agony. Behind him a woman surged forward, ducking under Jack's guard. Her shoulder caught him just under the ribs, her arms trapping him bodily in a familiar grapple. Jack dug his feet in and refused to let the woman's weight carry him down. Her stout form gave her a lower center of gravity, and she had densely packed muscles along the tops of her shoulders and upper back. If she got him on the ground, it would be difficult to recover.

When she couldn't tackle him she redirected her momentum and tried to pull him down by the shoulders. Jack kept his feet, barely, bent at the waist with thick arms tight around his neck and shoulders. His hands searched for an opening, and earned an elbow to the kidney in return. He smacked away the knee she tried to slam into his face, then caught her leg and pushed all his weight upwards. Unbalanced, Jack finished the job by driving his shoulder into her sternum. She kept her hold on him, pulling him with her and only released him when she collided with the deck.

Jack scrambled to recover. The best he could manage was a left hook as the woman started to rise, snapping her head back into the commissary floor. He didn't chase her when she curled onto one side, groaning. He found his feet and searched the crowd for the next crowd. For now, he had a moment to catch his breath. Backing up, he bumped shoulders with Carter.

"You okay?" he panted over his shoulder, not taking his eyes from the faces surrounding them.

"Yeah, you?" She sounded winded, but alert, and didn't seem to be favoring any broken bones or serious injury.

"Yeah," he grinned. After his hard week in the connpod, fighting both Hanson and Banshee, an honest brawl envigorated him. Without the mech, his limbs moved freely, unencumbered by false drift and Hanson's overwhelming presence in his mind. Those few not participating in the melee chanted, crowing for blood. Klepper and two of his friends had regained their feet, and Jack counted another three who slowly stepped into the circle to join him, their eyes hungry for violence. Adrenaline burned through Jack's body, gearing up for another fight.

"You ready?" he asked.

He could almost hear her smile when Carter responded. "You bet."

The crowd pushed in, no longer caring who aimed for whom. Behind him, he could feel every shift of Carter's stance, and his body responded to the rhythm she set. Jack let his instincts take over. Her height gave Carter an advantage: she favored the longer reach of her legs to kick and knee, but as the crowd pressed in closer, she seamlessly transitioned to tightly controlled strikes with fists and elbows to keep his back well-guarded. As he fended off a left jab from an unfamiliar NCO in front of him, Jack sensed when she ducked to avoid a hammerfist descending towards her head. Without thinking, Jack twisted into a back kick, his leg passing over Carter's head to crack against the man's chin. Carter sprang backwards, checking the axe kick about to come down on his head from his original opponent. They swapped partners seamlessly.

Carter's shoulder brushed his as she crab-hopped to avoid reaching hands. Jack sank into the fight, letting his body take over. He felt weightless, and moved effortlessly with Carter. His focus narrowed to precisely the two of them, seeking out holes in his opponent's' defenses while filling the ones he spotted in Carter's.

Jack registered another fist coming at him and parried without looking at the face behind it. He blocked and answered with a sharp jab; his opponent dodged and lashed out with a vicious kick towards Jack's knee- a career ender if it landed. Instead of retreating into Carter's back, Jack advanced before the strike could connect, landing a solid hit on his opponent's solar plexus, doubling him over, and finished with an uppercut.

The clack of teeth snapping together reverberated down Jack's arm when his fist connected with the underside of his attacker's jaw, reminding him to pull the punch at the last second. He needed to disable, not maim. Panting, he gave his opponent time to recover- and felt his heart stop in his chest when he recognized the angry glare of Jonas Hanson stabbing back at him. Jack stumbled out of his rhythm, and when Hanson's gaze traveled to Carter- still working on her own attackers- Jack realized that he hadn't been Jonas' target at all. Jack simply stood in the way.

Something dark bloomed in Jack's chest- the phantom pressure of the _bo_ staff against his throat that morning in the _kwoon_ made him swallow as he came to a decision that would mean the end of his career as a pilot. He would not let Jonas get through to Carter.

Jack attacked, throwing first one punch and then another, only for Jonas to catch both of them. Jack continued to push against the palm stopping his blows; Jonas pressed back, unyielding even as his glare turned into a smirk when he realized he had Jack in a bind. His hands tightened on Jack's fists, grinding bones together in an intense grip. Jack needed to end this now, before Jonas acted on the advantage Jack had unwittingly given him. He paused, took a breath, and launched himself forward to headbutt his copilot in the face.

Stars exploded behind Jack's eyes when his forehead connected with the top of Hanson's nose, too close to the forehead to break anything and nearly knocking himself senseless in the process. Still, Hanson reared back in pain, releasing his hold on Jack. As his vision cleared Jack dodged the wild blows Hanson chased him with, but missed the knee aimed for his ribs. It connected solidly, winding him. He got his hands up, but soon found himself staring at Kowalsky's back as Manhattan's pilots pushed between them, breaking up their fight.

He heard someone heavy collapse behind him, the victim of a well-placed roundhouse kick from Carter. Jack turned to check on her, saw the man who had first tried to keep Carter from leaving darting towards her. Carter parried the feint he sent her way and grabbed the true uppercut he tried to sneak under her guard. She caught him by the wrist and twisted, stopping just short of breaking bone. The man froze when he felt his bones grind together, not noticing his too-wide stance.

Carter's knee slammed into his crotch before she twisted him around and shoved him towards the crowd. He didn't stagger far, and dropped to his knees only a few feet away, hand pressed tight to his groin. Two technicians tripped over him on their way into the fray, creating the start of a barrier between Carter and the mob beyond. No one noticed the sharp-jawed figure that had come to stand on the catwalk above them, observing the violent tumult below with a heavy glare. Jack's fist collided with a sharp jaw just as his haze was shattered by a harsh, familiar bellow.

"A-ten-HUT!" Jack jerked, cutting his dodge short and catching the tail end of jab on his jaw. He staggered, but didn't retaliate when the man's buddies turned the guy around to stand at attention. "What in the _hell_ is going on here?!"

How a man could yell so loud with so tight a jaw Jack would never know. Marshal Pentecost pinned them all in place with a single, scathing stare. Jack felt the back of his neck heat. He straightened in place, breathing heavily as sweat dripping into his eyes. From the corner of his eye he watched for any indication one of their opponents would use the Marshal's appearance to sucker punch him. None did. The only movement was Carter straightening as he did, and the heaving shoulders as those around him struggled to catch their breath.

Klepper was the first to speak, stepping out of line with a hand bracing his injured shoulder. "Sir, we were having a few drinks when Carter-"

"Before you continue, Mr. Klepper," Pentecost cut in, "I will remind you that this mess hall is under constant video surveillance, and the footage _will_ be reviewed before punishment for this drunken brawl is meted out." He glared at the mechanic unforgivingly. "Do you still care to continue?"

"No, sir," Klepper replied after some hesitation, far more quietly than he'd started. He stole a look at Hanson. Jack followed his glance and found Jonas glowering back over a bloodied nose. Jack's spine stiffened under the glare, and his chin lifted as he returned his attention back to the Marshal. He had chosen sides yet again. This time, he knew it was the right one.

"You two," Pentecost jabbed a single finger towards Jack and Carter. "Report to Doctor Frasier immediately." The Marshal turned his glare to the rest of the mob, who stood panting and bruised around them. "Anyone else needing medical attention will report to Dr. Brightman. The rest of you have fifteen minutes to clean this mess up! There will be a thorough inspection at the end of those fifteen minutes, and if there is a single crumb of food on this floor, you will try again with your personal toothbrushes!"

"Yes, sir!" The room thundered with the combined voice of two dozen men and women.

"Get to work!" The Marshal spun on his heel and marched out and immediately the room erupted into motion again, this time not to attack him or Carter but to obey the Marshal. Speaking of Carter… Jack whirled towards her, grinning breathlessly to meet Carter's gaze. Though her features remained carefully neutral, her eyes were alive in a way he hadn't seen before. They sparkled in the fluorescent lights, their corners crinkled with muted delight. She tilted her head towards the door.

"We need to get to Frasier," Carter said finally. "Follow me."

Jack kept pace with her long strides. No one intercepted them, though the thrill of the fight almost made Jack wish Hanson or Klepper would show their smirking faces again. He noticed his steps synced with Carter's, but if she noticed the same, she didn't say. Before long, two nurses planted them on two cots in a small, semi-private infirmary. They measured both their vitals before leaving Jack and Carter alone to await Doctor Frasier. Without the distraction of answering the nurses' questions, Jack couldn't keep his own at bay any longer.

He looked up at Carter on the opposite bed- and his questions died on his lips. The enthusiasm he'd glimpsed in the commissary had vanished, eclipsed by dark thoughts now clouding her features. Her eyes refused to meet his, focusing instead on the scuffed toes of her boots. Her hands gripped the edge of the mattress under her tightly, compressing the foam to nothing. Jack's stomach sank.

Carter's distance when they met made sense now. It had started to click when Teal'c first told him about May Day, but understanding the reason for the animosity was far different from witnessing it himself. The dark toasts and angry fists today explained why she'd declined to eat with them that day, and why she'd urged him to stay away from her. In the face of all that, what little he'd done to connect with her didn't measure up. That she'd even risked a conversation with him was a miracle. He should have done more. He should have ended Klepper's toast the second he started. He should have shut Jonas down on the catwalk the day Carter first introduced him to Banshee.

Jack wondered how the base would move forward now. Did this happen every year? Did they blame Carter even more when she refused to lay down and take her licks? Blood crusted at the corner of her mouth, surrounded by the beginning bloom of a nasty bruise, and her left eye already swelled, but the damage all appeared superficial- lucky shots lacking the necessary force to do any real damage. She cradled her right hand, the knuckles split and raw.

Carter lifted her chin and caught him staring. He grinned, the elation from the fight rising swiftly again. The last push of adrenaline still hummed in his system, itching to find their fluid synchronicity that had guided their movements during the fight. Jack would never pilot with Hanson again- Jonas' hateful glare back in the commissary assured him of that. He might never pilot a Jaeger again but, for just a few minutes, he'd had the chance to be the warrior he'd been trained to be.

"It could be worse," he offered as a distraction when the silence stretched on.

Carter raised an eyebrow, then glanced away, inspecting her knuckles. "Your face suggests otherwise."

"What?" Jack reached up, and felt around until he felt the beginnings of his own black eye. When he brought his fingers away they were tacky with blood, which he soon traced to a cut bisecting his eyebrow. "Oh." When had he gotten that? Damn. That was going to scar. Now aware of the injury, it began to throb painfully. _Ow._ Still, he grinned, now that he had her attention. "Nope. Could still be worse."

His captive audience stared, then lifted the same eyebrow again in question. Prompted to continue, Jack's grin broadened. "No shots," he explained. "I got all my boosters back at the Academy before I left, so, therefore-"

"Therefore, you decided to get into a bare-knuckled fight in the mess hall." The doctor who shoved through the door to finish Jack's sentence was small, but Jack's spine immediately straightened. Doctor Frasier carried two brown medical files in her arms, emblazoned with each of their names. She deposited them on a rolling table and turned to regard them. She took one look at Carter and immediately began to tut.

"Good lord, Sam," Doctor Frasier scolded. "Did you headbutt them?" She pulled on a pair of sterile gloves before gently prodding the area around the knot growing on Carter's forehead. Carter suffered the abuse well, only flinching once when the doctor hit a particularly sore spot. "I thought we learned our lesson the last time."

Jack smirked, pleased to find he wasn't the only one willing to stoop low when the occasion called for it. "You headbutted somebody?"

"In the Academy. Once. I learned my lesson." Carter winced away from Frasier's cotton swab, then stilled when Frasier swatted at her for fidgeting. She raised a stiff eyebrow in Jack's direction, confirming she had seen him headbutt Hanson. "That was years ago, Janet, and it wasn't _me_ doing the headbutting this time. I didn't even start this one."

"No, you only _finish_ fights. I remember." Frasier flashed a light in Carter's eyes to check pupil dilation before moving on to Jack. Jack gave his most charming grin, which Dr. Frasier blithely ignored. "I don't think your face is broken," she told him after probing the bruise forming on his forehead where he'd butted Hanson. She handed him an ice pack, then tossed a second to Carter. "Keep that ice on," she instructed. Both patients obeyed; Jack took his lead from Carter, who apparently knew better than to argue.

"Both of you know you need your hands to pilot, right?" Frasier sighed, peeling off her gloves. "I'm ordering scans for each of you to rule out any fractures." The doctor marked a note in their files. She turned away from Jack, clearly done with him. To his surprise, she paused next to Sam's bed.

"I know I asked you to stop by my office soon," Frasier murmured, barely loud enough for Jack to hear, "but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

Carter looked away. "I know," she said softly. "I'm sorry, Janet. It's just…"

"You're busy," Janet finished for herself. "I know." She studied her file absently. "You're welcome here any time, Sam. You don't have to wait for an injury, or orders from the Marshal. I hope you know that." A small hand touched Carter's wrist briefly.

Carter gave a minute nod. "I know."

Janet nodded, appeased. "All right, I'm going to go order those scans," she informed them, snapping her file shut and tucking it under her arm. "Keep icing," she ordered emphatically.

"Yes, ma'am," they chorused dutifully. Jack lifted his for good measure, so she could see for herself. As soon as she was out of sight, however, Jack's attention narrowed to only Carter. She inspected her bare elbow, which sported the pink rawness of one who'd elbowed a grizzled jaw. A nurse had doused all their scrapes and scratches with antiseptic even before Doctor Frasier arrived, but Carter dabbed at her elbow as though it was still tacky.

"You felt it too, didn't you?" His quiet query carved through the silence. Carter's hands returned to her lap, as did her gaze. "Back in the mess hall," he continued. "I've never felt anything like it. Fighting with you… that's what the _kwoon_ was supposed to feel like."

His bouts in the _kwoon_ had been a good challenge before Jonas tried to strangle him. The first two had even been satisfying, to come out on top against an opponent who clearly knew his stuff. But none of them had been enlightening. He'd never felt one with Hanson. Jack had read Hanson's style and body language to anticipate the next blow, but never felt a part of it. With Carter… with Carter he'd moved in concert, like they both knew the steps to a dance no one else could hear. The legends didn't do it justice.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

Carter shifted the ice pack on her elbow, studying the cuticles on her free hand. The tense line of her jaw conveyed sudden doubt, a moment of uncertainty that flashed out of sight before either of them could address it. Finally she met his gaze. She took a breath to respond, parted her lips, and- the door slammed open, admitting Marshal Pentecost. They both scrambled to their feet, but Pentecost made a beeline for Carter.

"Did I just see what I think I did?"

Carter looked away, searching for time. "Yes, sir," she admitted softly.

The Marshal, for all his alarm, didn't seem surprised. He inhaled deeply, settling into a more casual stance. He looked Carter dead in the eye. "You know what that means?"

Now, her colorfully bruising chin rose, meeting his heavy gaze with a defiant one of her own. "Yes, sir."

A moment of quiet followed, and out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Pentecost relax, softening into someone no longer their commanding officer. "I will not order you, Sam," Pentecost told her. His voice pitched even lower. "Are you ready for this?"

Carter's eyes held Pentecost's. Jack looked away to find something, anything, to study to feel less like a voyeur. "Yes, sir."

He nodded. Straightening back into the stern Marshal Jack was far more comfortable with, he addressed the both of them. "Having reviewed video footage of the altercation this afternoon, no charges are being pressed against either of you." Jack released a breath of relief, drawing Pentecost's attention. The Marshal turned to face him directly. "Pending medical approval, I expect to see you in Bay 3 bright and early tomorrow morning. You've got training to do."

"Sir," Jack started, past the sudden lump in his throat, "with all due respect, Ranger Hanson-"

"Hanson is no longer your copilot," Pentecost informed Jack bluntly. "Effective immediately, Ranger Carter will be your number one."

Jack stared at Carter disbelievingly as Pentecost strode out of the room. When he was out of sight, Carter turned to face him, a tired but happy smile curling her lips. "Call me Sam," she said, extending her hand. Jack clasped it, and smiled himself, feeling elated and weightless. Drift compatible. This is what it felt like. _Get a grip_ , he told himself, still shaking Carter's hand. Even if they fell short of true compatibility, anything would be better than Hanson. Their fight in the commissary was proof enough of that.

"I can take my hand back now," Carter reminded him. Jack blinked, and started, his grin diminishing only slightly as a flush heated his neck.

"Oh!" He released her hand, relieved to see that her smile lingered as well. "Sorry."

Doctor Frasier clipped back into the room, her nose buried in his medical file.

"Looks like you're due for your flu shot, Ranger O'Neill. The Academy missed it when they discharged you." She pulled out a large, very sharp needle. Jack froze, wide eyes darting to Carter for help. She lifted her hands helplessly. Not even she would dare challenge the Shatterdome's Chief Medical Officer. "We can take care of that for you before you leave today."

Jack cursed under his breath and reluctantly rolled up his shirt sleeve. Carter snickered behind her ice pack, which almost made it worth it. Almost.


	12. Chapter 12

**Warning: Mild Language**

* * *

Jack focused on breathing. In and out. In and out. His stomach churned nervously. Over the past week of daily drops with Hanson, he'd steadily cared less and less what his copilot thought of him. Now the intense drive to make a good impression came roaring back full throttle, twisting his insides into knots. He stole a glance at Carter, and envied her calm. After suiting up, they'd taken time to get comfortable in the suits and to reacquaint themselves with Banshee's connpod. Carter now stood at the view port, staring at the bay spread out before them as workers cleared the area in preparation. When they dropped, the tinted shield would slide down to fill the slit in Banshee's helmet, but for now they had the entire window to look through unimpeded. Jack almost joined her, but thought better of it. Jack might have first-time jitters, but Carter had a battle of her own to fight.

As far as Jack knew, she hadn't stepped foot in Banshee's connpod since May Day three years ago. Did she have misgivings about trying again? Having a brand new partner-fresh out of the Academy at that- couldn't help assuage her doubts. Still, at the very least she knew what to expect. It wouldn't be anything like he'd experienced with Hanson. Even just gearing up had been a completely different show from the past week. Hanson's constant stream of inane commentary had been blissfully absent, and Jack noticed that the suit techs had been far warmer for it. To his satisfaction, they didn't seem to share Klepper's animosity towards Carter. When Jack inspected the faces who helped him, he didn't recognize a single one from the brawl.

He wondered if Banshee's crew had ever blamed Carter for May Day. In fact, they seemed a little in awe of her return. They weren't the only ones. The faces that had stood by to watch their long approach to Banshee's helm had seemed similarly awed. Some were resentful, yes, but it was in that moment that Jack realized that Jack wasn't the only one who was a little starstruck. His stomach lurched threateningly once again. She was going to feel all this in the drift if he didn't get a grip. If he couldn't hide his enthusiasm, how could he expect her to take him seriously? He closed his eyes, and breathed. In. Out. In. Out.

 _Can the rookie stuff, O'Neill,_ he scolded himself. Soon the only difference between them would be experience. Carter hadn't started out as a star pilot. She put her drivesuit on one leg at a- Oh. She might not have started out as a star pilot, but she _did_ start out as the daughter of _the_ Jacob Carter. She'd spent most of her life among the pilot elite, long before she became one of them. The process to becoming a Jaeger pilot would have been the same as any other pilot's- her experience of it would have been far different.

"Hey!" Carter's voice broke through his thoughts. "You listening?"

Jack nodded, pulled abruptly back to awareness. "Yeah," he lied. He shut his insecurities away and focused on Carter, who turned away from the viewport and now made her way to the drive harness.

"It's going to be tempting to rely on the drift for communication," Carter warned him. Jack nodded. "Don't," she instructed. "I don't know you well enough, and you don't know me. That'll eventually come later, but for now I need you to be vocal, okay?"

"You got it." Jack flexed his fingers, feeling the familiar pull of the drive suit.

"All right. Let's get started." Carter got into position, clicking her boots home into place while securing the sensors to her wrists. Jack followed her lead, and soon they were both suspended over Banshee's churning mechanisms.

Aligning with Carter couldn't have been more different than what Jack had grown accustomed to with Hanson. She aligned first, and like everything else, she did it quietly. Jack couldn't even tell she was ready to go until Tendo spoke up in his ear. "Right side aligned," Tendo confirmed. "O'Neill, you're up."

Jack accidently stole a glance at Carter, suddenly unsure if what he'd learned from Jonas was correct. She'd made it look so effortless, but there was no judgement in her gaze when their eyes locked.

"You can do this," she told him, seeing his hesitation. "Take a deep breath, and relax. Open your senses. Your mind and the tech will do the rest."

Jack nodded, and followed her instructions. Almost instantaneously, he could sense her in the drift. Where Jonas had been a continuous pounding wave against his mind, Carter's presence was an eddy. He plunged in and everything that was her enveloped him. Hanson had been chaos; Carter was peace. If she were a lake, he felt like he could float on his back and stare at the stars forever. He felt their bodies spasm in tandem at the joining, but Tendo's voice was far more enthusiastic than he'd been with Jack and Hanson their first day.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!"

Legend said their memories were supposed to mingle, but all Jack picked up from Carter were watercolors of emotions, the pool of her consciousness changing tint with the familiar affection she held for Tendo. A moment later, the tide pulled out, taking Jack's floating eddy with it and leaving him standing on dry land. He opened his eyes to the connpod.

"You okay?" Carter asked, her voice tinkling through their continued connection along with a sudden flush of concern. She was still there, Jack realized dazedly. They were simply as separate as the drift could allow. He nodded wordlessly. Even if he had the breath to answer- he didn't- he had no words. "Need a moment?"

"N-nah," Jack's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "No. I'm good." He blinked the stars from his eyes and focused on the task at hand. "Let's do this."

Carter regarded him carefully. "Okay," she accepted. "We'll start simple. Opening stance of the Yaginata _kata_." Feet shoulder width apart, fists up-fingers in- then brought sharply down to stop at the belt. It was the simplest stance of the simplest kata and the first one all recruits were required to learn.

"On my mark," Carter alerted him. "Three, two, one, _mark_."

Jack brought his arms up swiftly. Used to piloting with Jonas, Jack moved with enough force to counter the typical resistance he'd learned to compensating for. He realized a split second later that the drag was gone. Banshee's fists clanged off the hull where she'd smacked herself in the helm, rocking the connpod and sending the sensors screeching into alarm mode.

"Whoa!" Carter shouted as they flopped like rag dolls in their harnesses. A few keystrokes on her interface pad, and the alarms quieted. "Easy there, tiger."

"Sorry! Sorry…" Jack flexed his hands, getting used to the new feel. "That was way more give then I expected."

"Right." Carter smirked. "You'll want to get used to it, before you do the kaiju's job for them."

"Hey!" he protested indignantly, but Carter's grin assured him that she wasn't being derisive. In fact, it was the closest she'd come to joking since he met her. "Hyuk, hyuk."

"All right, let's try that again. _Gently_ , this time." Carter tapped a command into her keypad. "On my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

This time Banshee's fists came up in perfect form, paused, then dropped to waist height. The motion was smooth as silk. It was nothing like he'd been able to accomplish with Hanson. Not only did it feel like every ounce of drag was gone, but his mind was _clear_. He could interpret his monitors in a glance, just like in the simulator. Piloting felt natural again.

"Position 2, on my mark," Carter pressed on, ignorant of Jack's personal revelation. "Three, two, one…"

They slowly moved through every step in the kata. It was an upper kata, arms and hands only. By the final phrase, they were progressing smoothly, without Carter's countdown. When they were finished, Jack was itching to move on, but was left disappointed.

"Again," Carter ordered. They did it, again and again until Jack's arms were quivering and his brow was drenched with sweat. He didn't know how long they spent repeating the motions, but when Carter called a break, it was all he could do to keep from disengaging right there.

"Doing good," Carter said. Jack was vindicated to hear that she was just as out of breath as he was. "How do you feel about going for a walk?"

Jack bit back a grumble and prepared to get moving, anticipating the all too familiar tug against his limbs. When the connpod fell unnaturally quiet, he paused. There was no sound of Banshee gearing up, no relay over the comms. He snuck a glance at Carter and froze to find her looking at him quizzically. "Well?" she asked.

"What?"

"I asked a question," she reminded him. "You going to give me an answer or what?"

Jack nodded, sheepish. "Yeah," he responded. "Let's get walking."

Carter's brow furrowed in confusion but chose not to dig any deeper. "LOCCENT, this is Banshee. We're ready to get our feet wet."

"Reading you loud and clear, Banshee. Stand by for transport."

After a moment, there was a lurch as banshee's transport rolled into motion. They rode in silence for a few moments, listening to the grumble of Banshee's systems.

"Hey." Carter's voice pierced the quiet. Jack turned to meet her gaze. "I meant what I said earlier. I need you to be vocal, and responsive. It may not be what you're used to, but it's the only way Banshee is going to respond the way we need her to. It won't be magic right out of the gate. It may take weeks, or months, but we will get there. You're a good pilot. We just have to get used to each other."

Jack nodded. "I understand. Thanks." He paused. "It's been a lot of change, recently," he confessed.

"Yeah," she affirmed. "Sorry about that."

"Please, don't apologize," Jack stumbled over his own words. He couldn't read much from her through the drift, but now he caught hints of guilt clutching at his stomach and couldn't be entirely sure they were his alone. "It's not your fault," he pointed out. "And honestly, I'm-" _Ah, hell_. She'd probably read him like an open book when they completed the neural handshake.

"I'm nervous as hell," he confessed. "I mean, I should be thanking you." Carter flushed. "And not just for giving me this opportunity- you've gone out of your way to help me since I got here, and I…" He trailed off, unsure of where he'd been intending to go with it. Bottom line was that of all the people he'd met in San Diego so far, Carter was the only one who felt like a friend. He couldn't just come out and say that outright though. If he was wrong, and Carter had only been humoring him… Jack cared what she thought of him, more than he probably should.

"You know what you're doing," he said finally. "I just hope I can measure up."

Carter shrugged in her harness, noncommittal. Jack wasn't certain, but he got the feeling that she was self-conscious herself. Three years ago she left the pilot program behind to move to engineering. Now here she was, back in the harness again with only a reckless brawl to suggest they could work well together. His eyes weren't the only ones on her. The entire Shatterdome watched with bated breath to see how well they'd do. Maybe Carter felt just as nervous as he did.

"All right, Banshee, we just pulled up to the pier," Tendo informed them. "Get ready for your inaugural dunking!"

Carter rolled her eyes. They dismounted the carrier, and dropped into the waves. Banshee moved forward with confident strides. Carter didn't bother with any countdown this time. They walked to the Miracle Mile and back, then out again. They continued to walk, finding a rhythm that worked. Carter had just cued them to start a full _kata_ when an APB alert sounded through their headsets.

"Belladonna Banshee, this is LOCCENT. We've just detected activity at the breach, heading for your position. Codename Cetus."

Carter and Jack shared a look. "Orders?" Carter relayed.

"Stand by. Manhattan Bombshell is deploying to take point. You are to observe and assist if necessary."

Carter nodded, unsurprised. She must have sensed Jack's disappointment, because she shot him a sympathetic glance as she keyed her response. "Understood, LOCCENT. Standing by."


	13. Chapter 13

**Warnings: Kaiju Violence, Some Language**

* * *

When Manhattan Bombshell dropped into the waves fifteen minutes later, the Jaeger strode by Banshee towards the Miracle Mile without so much as a wave. "Manhattan Bombshell is in position," Kowalsky told LOCCENT over their comms.

Poked by the lack of greeting, Jack cocked a grin as he leaned towards Carter. "You think they ever get embarrassed having to say Bombshell every five minutes?"

Carter's expression remained flat, with just a hint of a wince. "You could ask them," she delivered evenly, "considering they can hear you."

Jack froze. He struggled to find a witty comment to get himself out of the hole he dug, but none were forthcoming. Heat crept up the back of his neck, as the knowledge that he'd been busted sank in.

"Do _you_ get embarrassed talking about beautiful women, O'Neill?" Kowalsky drawled over the open comms. "Because I have to say that's never been a problem of mine." Ferretti chortled over the line, and Jack flushed deeper when even Carter cracked a wry grin. "Now how about you cut the chit chat and get back to the half. We don't need anyone underfoot."

"You got it," Carter returned, granting Jack a brief reprieve to recover from the gentle ribbing. Together, they maneuvered Banshee back towards shore, and covered the distance easily, parking it at enough of a distance from Manhattan to keep out of their hair, but close enough to jump in if things went south. Jack was eager to fight, especially now that he no longer felt like he was walking with cement shoes on, but god, he hoped they weren't needed. Not the day after May Day.

There they waited, scanning the dark waves for any sign of movement. The Academy hadn't covered the pall of anticipation in training. The ominous shadow of imminent monsters weighed as heavily as drifting with Hanson. Before Jack felt it in his chest, pressing down on his lungs. They were lucky the beast hadn't made landfall before they could intercept, but there was something to be said for following a trail of destruction, on the hunt, rather than waiting for the kaiju to come to them.

By the time Cetus appeared on radar, Jack was so wired that the small blip jolted his entire system. Certain that Carter could sense the alarm through the drift, he slid a self-conscious glance in her direction but her eyes were focused on her own instrument panel. Jack fumbled the key to alert Manhattan, but paused when he felt Carter's urge to wait. He looked to her, and she murmured a soft "hold on" that wasn't picked up on the comms.

"Got it!" Kowalsky reported a moment later, with the distracted tone of a pilot getting to work. The right side of the Jack's vidscreen linked directly to LOCCENT, and through the uplink he could see Manhattan deploy its stanchions. Thick tri-bladed stanchions five meters long fired from the soles of Manhattan's boots, piercing layers of sand, silt and rock to anchor the Jaeger in place against the bedrock. As he and Carter watched, Manhattan seemed to shrink, its joints contracting to provide better protection against the impending attack.

"Juggernaut protocol engaged," Ferretti confirmed. Manhattan now looked less human and more rock; it would have limited mobility hunkered down like that, but it would be almost impenetrable, and not a moment too soon. The ocean at Manhattan's feet surged and parted to reveal six hungry eyes and a razor sharp beak. "Whoa!"

"Cetus engaged!" Tendo confirmed. _Understatement_. Cetus's scans on their HUD didn't do the beast justice. It was massive, almost impossible to see in the frothing waves. The bore a passing resemblance to a squid, particularly in the tentacles whipping continuously against Manhattan's hull, seeking purchase. Sharp hooks lined each arm, creating sparks when they met Manhattan's unyielding hull. It pulled furiously at Manhattan's arms, but their Juggernaut protocol held. When its attacks proved unfruitful, the beast changed tactics, instead wrapped all its tentacles around Manhattan's bulk to heave itself upward, and then slam its serrated beak down against their helm.

The sound of Manhattan's alarms echoed over the comm link. Kowalsky and Ferretti reported calmly over the headset, as yet unperturbed. Jack slid a glance towards Carter, only to find that she wasn't even watching the action. Her eyes were on her instruments, monitoring the radar.

"Engage!" Ferretti called in unison with his copilot. Jack returned his attention to the battle in time to see Manhattan relax one arm and snag a handful of tentacles. Cetus immediately wrapped almost a third of its appendages around the limb, correctly identifying its greatest opportunity to inflict damage. It surged backwards, trying to topple Manhattan into the waves. Manhattan's stanchions held. Ferretti and Kowalsky responded by firing their forward flamethrowers, incinerating the stems of the tentacles they held, and licking the face of the beast itself, aiming for the eyes. Cetus shrieked and writhed straining against Manhattan's grip. A second later the kaiju crashed into the waves, unexpectedly freed, leaving Manhattan with nothing but a fistful of writhing tentacles.

Manhattan lurched towards Cetus. Each step meant the retraction and redeployment of each stanchion, slowing their progress to a halting crawl. Still, it likely saved their lives when Cetus took advantage of their movement to barrel into the Jaeger from behind. It latched onto the back of Manhattan's hull, clawed tentacles scraping and pulling at any purchase it could find. Manhattan staggered under the weight, but remained upright. Its beak smashed again and again against Manhattan's connpod. Alarm fired through the drift, the first matching emotion JAck and Carter had experienced in the drift so far. However, Carter's concern settled a moment later, while Jack's flared onl brighter as Manhattan swiveled in vain to dislodge the kaiju.

Suddenly, there was a shower of sparks as Cetus found an opening in the Manhattan's left shoulder- the arm Manhattan had used to tear the tentacles before hadn't reset properly, and now those clawed hooks dove into the crevice and tore out cordons of cables. Manhattan cursed over the headsets, suddenly losing ground as more of Cetus' appendages lashed in towards the opening.

"We should help them!" Jack snapped. He'd had it with waiting. "Banshee can handle it!"

"So can Manhattan," Carter responded coolly. "We have our orders. We stay here-" She broke off suddenly, her eyes drawn to a gauge on her display. Jack felt alarm trickle through their connection, followed swiftly by exhilaration. "Control, did you see that pulse on the radar just now?"

"Affirmative, Banshee. Analyzing now."

"What? What is it?"

"Were any other signatures detected at the breach?" Carter continued over Jack, fingers tapping a command into the keypad.

"Negative," Tendo responded. "Remain in position."

Jack looked to Carter. "You said to remain vocal, ma'am."

Sam paused, blinking as though she'd forgotten he was there. "We have a second kaiju, closing fast," she told him, resuming her typing. "You might just get your fight after all."

"I'm not seeing anything on my sensors. How do you know?"

"Call it a gut feeling. Our instruments aren't picking it up consistently. Could be something about it that avoids our detection methods. Switching to visuals."

The screen projected the battle against the bulkhead. Jack spied the thrashing kaiju in Manhattan's grip, then moved on to the ocean roiling around the two. He saw nothing that couldn't be explained by the fight among the waves. Suddenly, Carter cursed.

"Prime the plasma cannon!" she ordered, then opened up comms. "Manhattan! You have another incoming!"

"Screens show nothing!" Kowalsky shouted over the speaker. "Get off my damn comms, Carter, and stay the hell back!"

"What do you see?" Jack asked, too alarmed to take issue with Manhattan's disrespect. He could feel it now, her certainty and apprehension. He just didn't see what clued her in.

"There." She zoomed Banshee's camera on the ocean less than 50 meters from Manhattan's position. Jack finally saw it- a wide swath of glinting ripples, fish the surface of the water in distress. "It's coming straight up. Manhattan won't see it coming."

The plasma cannon was already hot, and as one they hefted it up, zeroing on the point they anticipated the kaiju would peak- it would be moving too quickly when it breached, but the moment it was airborne could slow it down enough for them to hit. Manhattan only registered the active weapon leveled in their direction.

"Carter!" Kowalsky shouted. "I said-"

Suddenly the waves surged and bulged, erupting the biggest kaiju Jack had ever seen. He and Carter fired instantly without a word. The blast passed over Manhattan's right shoulder and tore into the broad side of their newest arrival, the force of the blow turning the beast aside to send it careening back into the waves.

"Control, second contact is confirmed," Jack reported through his repeat. "I repeat, contact confirmed. Belladonna Banshee is prepared to engage." He didn't need to even look at Carter to confirm. He felt her readiness in the back of his mind, like an itch niggling to be satisfied.

"We can see that," Pentecost returned dryly. "Codename Multo. You are clear to engage."

Carter re-opened the channel to Manhattan. "Manhattan, we've got this one."

Whether Kowalsky was bitter at having to eat his words, they didn't know, as Manhattan was too busy grappling with Cetus to respond.

"We've lost visual," Jack reported. He kept his eyes peeled, knowing that Multo's attention was now entirely on Banshee. A new beeping on his monitor sounded an alarm, pulling his attention away from the viewscreen. He blinked in surprise when he read the numbers. "You... redirected the core's output?" Jack shook his head. "We're still at full power! The core will overload!"

"Wait," Carter told him, scanning the waves. She'd requested they speak verbally, but the drift begged for trust. Trust me… Trust her… They had to do this together, or not at all. And not at all would kill them and Manhattan both, not to mention the millions of people behind them on the mainland.

 _Okay_. Jack opened his mind. He stopped wondering, stopped questioning. He observed, and focused on Banshee. Her power levels climbed steadily into the red. They had 60 seconds before systems started to shut down automatically and they lost function. He felt Multo's return before alarms sounded.

"NOW!" he shouted with Carter, spinning Banshee and venting the excess energy. A torrent of heat and flames reached hungrily for Multo, and propelled Banshee backwards through the waves faster than they could have moved under their typical rocket boosters alone. The ocean began to glow faintly, stained with the blue ammonia of kaiju blood that dripped steadily from its side while it blinked the pain from its seared eyes. Jack felt Carter's instinct to press the advantage and followed readily.

Banshee charged forward and feinted towards an uppercut, but shifted into a right hook when Multo recoiled and exposed its injured side. Banshee's fist gouged deep into the wound caused by their plasma cannon and flexed its fingers for purchase in the kaiju's flesh. Multo pulled away with an unearthly shriek, leaving them with nothing but slippery blobs of dermis between their fingers.

Multo screeched, rattling their eardrums even through Banshee's layered hull. Shaking it off, they settled into a familiar fighting stance. Multo writhed pitifully on the surface of the waves, growing significantly weaker as Banshee advanced. They hesitated just out of reach, when Multo fell preternaturally still. They primed the plasma cannon rather than advance further. Before it could fully charge Multo lunged for them, snarling as it went straight for the exposed cannon. They retracted it before its jaws could snap shut and wrapped their arms around its bulk and squeezed. Banshee didn't have the bulk or strength to crush it outright, but it gave them a moment to breathe.

Jack grunted under the effort to keep Multo pinned. He had no idea whether Manhattan was holding up with Cetus. Multo's domeplate eclipsed their camera view, limiting their vidscreens to the two bony protrusions pushing through the thick hide. They were close enough to see the seam between the plates-

The realization came to Jack at the exact moment he called out. "The plates! Go for the plates!"

Banshee released one arm and dug its fingers behind the first of the beast's two armored plates shielding its skull. Multo struggled to break away, talons and teeth scraping against Banshee's hull. They locked their other hand on the remaining plate and twisted, grappling as they would a bull by the horns.

"Push and pull!" Jack shouted, and immediately they pulled at the right plate and pushed against the left, then alternated. Again and again they switched, gaining leverage with each pull. Soon Multo's thrashing became more desperate as it felt its hide start to split and tear. Then a sickening crack reverberated up Banshee's arm. With one last heave they threw all their weight against the loosened plate. Multo screamed as the plate came away as easily as a fingernail, taking a large swath of the skull with it, dripping blue and gristle.

They threw the plate aside and plunged their fist into the brain left exposed. With a massive shudder, Multo writhed, then fell absolutely, deathly still. Scooping a handful of matter from the cranium for good measure, Banshee dropped the carcass into the waves and turned to find Manhattan still struggling with Cetus. Without a second thought, they primed their plasma cannon once more.

"Manhattan, this Banshee. Multo is terminated," Carter announced across the open channel, breathless. "Do you require assistance?"

"Yes!" came the synchronous response. Manhattan managed to hook its arms around Cetus' mantle, and threw it bodily across their shoulder, leaving half a dozen tentacles still latched to their hull. "Light it the hell up!"

Instantly Banshee's cannon came up and fired, pulse after pulse, catching Cetus unaware. When it turned to face the new threat, Manhattan opened a barrage of rocket fire. Together they engaged on both fronts, and continued firing until Cetus was nothing but a smoking husk. When it finally fell still, they both moved in.

"Careful, Manhattan," Jack warned. "Multo tried to get sneaky on us."

Manhattan's response was to plant one foot on Cetus' shell, where the mantle met the more flexible tissue of the arms. Cetus didn't even flinch when the stanchion deployed, the long thick blade piercing the hide. Manhattan dragged the blade along the length of the mantle, just to be sure. The kaiju's body split in two, bobbing lifelessly in the waves.

"Control, this is Manhattan," Kowalsky panted over the comms. "Cetus is terminated."

"Confirmed. Both Jaegers are to return to the Shatterdome immediately." Pentecost paused. "Well done, Rangers. Excellent teamwork."


	14. Chapter 14

**Warnings: Mild Language**

* * *

By the time they docked again, Jack's legs were nearly ready to collapse from exhaustion but that didn't keep him from clapping Carter on the shoulder as soon as they disengaged from their harnesses, barely able to contain his glee.

"That was amazing! The way you spotted the fish- and that shot! We nailed it square in the chest. In mid-air! Unbelievable! How did you know to do that with the core? I've never seen a Jaeger move like that before!" His muscles quivered with leftover adrenaline, leaving him breathless and rambling. Carter played a stolid counterpoint, seasoned enough to be still but not to keep a broad megawatt smile off her face.

"Just an idea I had," she said, unlocking her boots from the drive interface. When she stepped onto solid footing, the transition was smooth, whereas Jack had stumbled like a green sailor back on dry land. "That was a smart call with the plating, working it back and forth like that. Great job."

Jack flushed at the praise, but didn't lose his smile. He hadn't been completely sure the idea had been his alone. During the walk back to the Shatterdome, he'd tried to recall who had sparked the thought first, but every reach only delved deeper into that pool where their minds combined. In there he couldn't tell who was who- nothing he'd experienced with Jonas had come close to preparing him for that. Carter apparently felt far more comfortable with drift compatibility than Jack. If she said the credit was his, he wasn't about to argue. He assumed that in time he would grow more familiar with the experience as well, but part of him hoped that he never lost this feeling, the elation...

They'd been one person in that fight. Together, they'd been Banshee. Some pilots gloated that they knew everything the other was thinking, even when not connected by the neural bridge. He hadn't had that with Carter, but it seemed they didn't need it. They'd been on the same page without it. He'd never seen instincts like hers, and suddenly he could see how shocking it must have been for someone so gifted, such a valuable resource, had frozen on May Day.

They both looked up at the bulkhead when they felt the helm connect with the dock. Jack's grin widened. "Home Sweet Home," he chirped. He turned to Carter. "What do you say we go be heroes?" He nudged her on the way to the hatch, only to pause when she called his name.

"O'Neill…" Carter's grin faded. As Jack watched, her joy visibly dwindled to the tense apprehension that he now realized rarely left her. "I don't know what it'll be like out there."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "We kicked ass!"

"Yes, we did. And they've all seen it." Carter looked at her boots, but just as quickly forced her gaze back up to meet his. "If you were piloting with anyone else they'd be ready for the ticker tape parade, but you're stuck with me, and I don't know how they'll react to the fact that I can still pilot like that."

Jack understood now. For two years the entire Shatterdome believed Samantha Carter had choked. No matter the reason, May Day served as ignominious proof that she'd burned out, and they'd blamed her for the deaths and destruction of Hiroshi's Sabre and Whiskey Blue, and the decline of the Shatterdome in the years since. Today they'd been proven very, very wrong.

"You think they'll be angry," he filled in, putting the pieces together. She shrugged. "They'll think you've been holding out on them?"

It sounded absurd when he said it aloud, but Carter's flush confirmed he wasn't far off the mark. He wished he could assure her that they wouldn't react badly to the development, but he couldn't. Not after the brawl the night before, and the multitudes of people who'd been all too willing to pile in on top of her.

"I don't know," Carter replied. "At the very least they'll have questions." It was clear to Jack that if they did, she had no intention of answering them. "My point is, if you don't get the hero's welcome you're expecting… it's not because of you."

"Hey," Jack said, edging closer. "If they have a problem with you, they have a problem with me too. I don't care what happened on May Day. What we did out there today was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. We saved lives today. That's what matters. If they don't agree, then they can eat kaiju shit, for all I care."

Ultimately, Carter nodded. Together, they exited Bella. The exit corridor was empty, and as the quiet continued to the lift that would carry them down to the main bay, Jack worried that Carter would be proven right after all. But when the gates rolled open onto the bright space, the bay erupted into cheers. Hordes people pressed close to congratulate them as they stepped from the cage. Jack beamed, and though Carter let a smile brighten her own features, he could feel the tension vibrating through every inch of her as hands reached to shake theirs, and clap them on the shoulder, any piece of them they could reach. Jack thought he spied Hanson glaring at them through the crowd, but couldn't get a good look before the crowd parted to reveal Manhattan's pilots waiting for them.

Carter stopped short. Jack halted at her side. His own contact with Kowalsky was colored through the lens that was Hanson's stain, and Ferretti had barely spared him two words since his arrival- but he'd struck Jack as a man of few words in the first place. Neither of them had spoken up for Carter when Hanson spewed his poison for two years. Now though, they regarded Carter with something far different than disdain.

Kowalsky was the first to breach the distance between them, with Ferretti only a step behind. Once in reach, Kowalsky stuck out his hand. "Thank you."

Carter took his hand, while Jack shook Ferretti's. Kowalsky's gaze spread to Jack as he spoke his gratitude, but his eyes quickly returned to Carter. "Carter…" He didn't seem to know where to start.

"Kowalsky," Carter returned dryly, giving him no hints as to how to get out of his predicament. Kowalsky's cheeks flushed.

"Sam…" he tried again, lowering his voice to something far more personal. "After what I saw out there, it is now very clear, to both of us," he motioned to include Ferretti, who nodded, "that there is a lot about the past two years that we don't understand." His apparent chagrin softened Jack's suspicion.

"I don't know if we ever will understand," Kowalsky continued, "but for what it's worth... we're sorry. There's a lot for us to make up for."

"That was some piloting out there, Sam," Ferretti spoke up. "We've missed having you in the field."

"I could tell," Carter replied. A smirk graced her lips but didn't reach her eyes, which betrayed her distrust. Manhattan's pilots didn't seem to notice. They laughed and clapped Carter on the shoulder, and then Jack.

The cheers resumed, until Marshal Pentecost appeared. The crowd parting before him like the Red Sea. All four pilots straightened to exhausted attention. "At ease," he said swiftly, declining to stand on ceremony. "Banshee…"

"Yes, sir," Carter and Jack responded crisply.

Pentecost glared at them. "I have never seen so seamless a fight on a first drift. Well done." His praise sparked a full smile from Carter, whose eyes shone when she shot Jack a look. "To Manhattan as well. Good job, all of you."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Medical is waiting for all of you. Get checked out, then get some rest. You've earned it."


	15. Chapter 15

**THIS IS IT. This chapter contains a vivid flashback to a sexual assault. If any of the warnings listed below put you off, please protect yourselves and skip to the next chapter, which will be posted immediately. A short recap will be included at the top of Chapter 16 to catch you up. I want you to enjoy the story but not sacrifice your mental health to do it.**

 **WARNINGS: Panic Attack; Dissociation; Rape and Sexual Assault**

* * *

The next day Jack trotted down the corridor towards Banshee. Another pilot might have groaned at the prospect of yet another training run so soon after a successful kaiju fight. Not Jack. He couldn't wait to get back in the connpod, to find the drift again. Carter acted like it was old hat, but Jack couldn't get enough of it. More than that, more time in the drive seat was more time to get more familiar with Banshee and with Carter. The boots of his drive boots clanked noisily under him against the metal deck, nearly obscuring the low voices coming from ahead.

"Dammit, Sam," a dark voice growled, barely hushed. "You're _my_ copilot."

"I'm not your anything, Jonas." Carter's voice pitched lower than Jack had ever heard it. In it, he detected a dangerous edge of anger and disgust. Instinct screamed at him to move and intercept Jonas; reason urged him to stay put. She was an elite soldier, and probably wouldn't appreciate a green copilot trying to fight her battles for her. "Get your hands off me."

All reason vanished. Jack surged into motion, stomping around the corner with his heart pounding in anticipation of a fight. Hanson stood with Carter backed into a corner, trapping her with one arm planted on the bulkhead next to her head, and his other hand wrapped tightly around her wrist. Before Jack could even call out as a distraction Carter wrenched her hand from Hanson's grip and used the drive helmet in her hand to shove past the arm trying to pen her in.

"There a problem here?" Jack demanded, even as Carter stepped into the clear. He shot Hanson a withering look but soon focused on Carter, to confirm she was okay. Her features told him nothing. The tiny sliver of transparency he'd earned since their fight together in the commissary was nowhere to be found, leaving him with nothing to interpret but rock-hard countenance and icy eyes. Jack struggled against the urge to wring Hanson's neck.

"You're late," Carter told him sharply, ignoring his query completely.

Jack's gaze flickered between her and Hanson, taking note of his former copilot's angry scowl. "Sorry about that," he responded.

"Let's go." So they were back to monosyllables. Jack slung a glare toward Hanson, who used the hesitation to plant himself between them and the hatch to the connpod. Carter barrelled through, again using her helmet as a buffer.

"I'm not finished-" Jonas hissed. He captured Carter's bicep in a bruising grip as she passed, yanking her back before she could disappear into the safety of the connpod.

"HEY!" Jack's shout echoed sharply in the corridor. Carter twisted her arm up against the weakest part of Hanson's grip, and on the way reached up and caught Jonas by the back of the neck. Before he could react she yanked him down, pulling her with him as she threw her weight behind a vicious throw. Hanson's feet left the ground as though weightless, then fell back to Earth as he landed heavily on his back on the concrete. Jonas' hard landing drove the breath from his body. Carter straightened, barely winded. _No_ , Jack corrected, _barely breathing_. She froze, staring down at Hanson with a dark fire burning in her eyes that suggested she wanted to do far worse.

"You are finished," she growled. Jonas couldn't respond if he wanted to. He gasped like a fish, curled protectively on his side. When Sam didn't move, Jack was suddenly afraid that she _would_ do something worse. Carefully, he reached out to touch her shoulder.

"Sam?" His touch brought Carter back to herself. She jerked away from his hand, turning from both of them to resume her march to the connpod. Jack trotted after her. The only sounds were that of Jonas gulping air, and the clack of their boots against the deck. This corridor was only used by Banshee's team- since they suited up in the prep lab, no one but her pilots would have reason to pass through this hall today. If Jack had been just a few minutes later…

Carter would have taken care of herself, Jack reminded himself. Just like she actually had done. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

"Fine." She pushed ahead to escape through the hatch first. Jack studied her from behind as he followed, and saw her breaths continue to draw in a jerky pattern. She wasn't okay.

Hesitantly, he tried again. "Are you sure you-"

"Lay off, O'Neill," Carter growled. "Before you're the one I have a problem with."

Jack froze, unprepared for the hostility suddenly directed at him. He covered it with a crooked smile as he pulled the hatch closed behind them and secured it. "Well, doesn't that just give me the warm and fuzzies."

Carter blinked, jerking slightly when his drawl hit a sour note. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Though her stony expression didn't soften in the slightest, Jack detected a hint of guilt in her eyes. "Sorry," she muttered.

An intense quiet settled around them. Somewhere below, teams continued to finish their checklists, but Bella would sleep until they chose to wake her. For the moment, it was just the two of them, the eye of the storm. Drifting with animosity between them wasn't an idea Jack wanted to entertain. None of her ire seemed to be for him, but if he pushed the issue that fact could change in an instant. Jack remembered the way Carter's mind had drawn away from his on their last drop; his greatest wish was for one day Carter feeling as though she didn't have to do that. She wasn't ready to share some things with him yet- if he continued to dig, she never would.

"Don't worry about it," he brushed it off. "What's between you and Hanson is none of my business."

Carter nodded her appreciation, but said nothing more. They each moved to their respective rigs, where Carter initiated the startup sequence. Jack paused before he stepped onto his platform. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again without a word. Jonas shouldn't have laid a hand on her. He was lucky he'd gotten away with a simple winding. She could take care of herself, and any offer of support Jack could give her would only sound condescending, so the words remained locked in his throat. Maybe she'd see it in the drift, and know that if she really wanted to kick Hanson's ass, he'd help her hide the body.

They each mounted up, locking into the interface with practiced ease. "LOCCENT, this is Banshee," Carter transmitted back to control. "Ready to initiate neural handshake." Tendo gave them the go ahead, but almost immediately they hit a roadblock.

"Ranger Carter, you are below optimal levels," Tendo gently told them. Carter gave no immediate response, until Jack spoke up.

"Carter, you gotta relax a little."

"Trying to." And she was. He could hear her deep, even breaths, and feel her attempts to clear her mind. He couldn't sense her thoughts as other pilots claimed to with their partners, but she wasn't the calm presence she'd been last time. Today she was lightning and thunder, obscured from him by heavy thunderheads.

"Yo, Tendo," Jack said, pulling attention away from Carter, "how was your date last night?"

Whether or not he saw Jack's intent to give Sam some privacy, Tendo took the bait. "Glad you asked, my man. Good food, beautiful lady… Night went smooth as silk 'til we went back to hers."

"Yeah?" Jack prompted, egging him on.

"Turns out she lives with her brother," Tendo continued, "...who was my date last week." Tendo didn't sound too torn up about it, which made Jack laugh all the harder. Through the handshake, he felt some of Carter's tumult ease as his mirth traveled through their connection.

"It was bound to happen sooner or later!" he joked.

"Nothing but truth." Tendo agreed, before pausing distractedly. "Okay, Sam, your levels are within acceptable range. Prepare to complete the neural bridge."

Jack did what Carter had recommended the day before. He closed his eyes, opened his mind, and listened for the presence he recognized as Carter's. He found her faster than the last time, but she wasn't the calm eddy he remembered. Where their contact the day before had been soft and seamless, it now rattled against Jack's senses, brittle tension rippling along her edges in waves. Her mind was a thundercloud; he could sense the sharp flashes of her ragged emotions, but they were muffled like distant thunder, the lightning obscured to blooms of light brightening their connection before quickly fading again.

Still, it seemed to be enough for Tendo, who gave them the go-ahead. "All right, lady and gent, holding strong and looking good." A voice called to Tendo in the background, pulling the technician's attention away. " _Yeah, hold on…_ Sit tight and we'll get the bay doors open for you, Banshee." Tendo clicked off, leaving Jack and Carter to their own devices.

Jack turned to Carter, who tried very hard to ignore his gaze. When she finally turned towards him, her expression softened considerably. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "About before. I-"

"Please stand by for your pre-flight safety announcement." A voice that definitely wasn't Tendo's interrupted her over their headsets. For a moment, they couldn't place the voice; when Jack finally did, Sam's irritation flared white hot across the bridge. Jack grunted, but was right there with her. What the hell was Jonas doing on comms? He felt Sam struggle to maintain calibration against the rage that threatened to throw them out of balance. Jack made the split second decision to head Hanson off at the pass.

"As glad as I am to hear you've regained your breath, Jonas, how about you leave LOCCENT to the professionals?" he growled.

"Don't flatter yourself, O'Neill. I just stopped by to say hello to Tendo, and thought I'd wish you and Sammy a good trip."

"Don't call me that," Carter growled. Thunder punctuated each word in Jack's brain, each one threatening to spin him out of control. For the first time, his drift with Carter felt like it had with Jonas. He regretted the realization as soon as it flitted through his mind. Carter sensed it and the recrimination was instantaneous; she pulled back from him, the sudden lack of her left a vacuum behind. Jack felt himself get sucked along behind it, chasing her presence past the safe middle ground to the turbulent unknown.

Carter recoiled, gasping audibly. The sound served as all the fuel Jonas needed. His smirk was audible even through on the headset. "Looking a little shaky there guys… might want to take it easy."

"Hanson, get the hell off my comms!" Sam barked. She slammed the button that cast her voice across all open speakers in the LOCCENT booth. "TENDO!" Jack's chest began to feel heavy, only to realize that the shortness of breath was Carter's. Her thoughts swirled, making him dizzy as Jack felt himself being pulled further in, like matter to a black hole.

"Oh, come on, Sammy," Jonas goaded. "Don't be such a spoil sport."

Carter's thoughts locked on the final two words and froze. Jack's equilibrium swayed, and then he realized; they weren't frozen- they were in freefall. They hadn't dropped, they hadn't articulated the helm yet, so how did they- Jack's thoughts struggled to find up from down, but all that happened was the plummeting sensation in his gut like he'd stepped off Niagara Falls.

"Sam!" Tendo's voice faded in from far away, distorted as he grabbed the mic back from… from someone. Jack couldn't quite remember who. "Sam, you're out of alignment! Do you hear me? O'Neill!"

Carter didn't respond, and neither could Jack. The cockpit faded out around him. It was as if he was falling asleep, but instead of finding the back of his eyelids, a new scene appeared in front of him, as sharp and real as Banshee had been.

He recognized the space as a bunk, but not his own. A book lay open in his lap, held by hands that were also not his, but instantly recognizable. _Sam._ The memory was hers. A low voice spoke to his left, their left, and Jack felt Sam's giggle in his chest as she accepted the can of soda that was passed to her. The sound felt light and fresh, a far cry from the wry chuckles Jack himself managed to coax out of her. Their shoulder was warm, brushing someone else's in the familiar small room. Sam took another long swallow from the can before setting it on the floor beside her, her hands returning to the pages open in her lap.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?" Her head turned to address the man to their left, and a hand smoothly caught her by the chin. Lips pressed fiercely against hers, insistent and greedy. Alarm bubbled up Sam's throat when the unwelcome kiss deepened, a tongue pressing insistently against her lips. She planted a hand on the offender's chest and shoved hard, breaking the contact.

"What the hell was that?!" she demanded.

Jack's stomach dropped sickeningly when the features of Ranger Jonas Hanson came into focus. He sat close enough Jack could smell his cologne, his toothpaste, the product in his hair, all scents intimately familiar to Sam. The gleam in his eye, however, was foreign to both of them.

"Sam," Jonas began, "we've been dancing around this a long time, haven't we?" Jonas took Sam's hand from his chest and held it in both of his. "I know you've felt it."

Sam glanced around the room, searching for a punchline. "Is this a joke?"

"What? No, Sam, of course not. I love you." He pressed his lips to her fingers this time. "And I know you love me too. I feel it every time we enter the drift."

Sam carefully extracted her fingers, reaching for her soda. Bringing it to her lips gave her brain time to change gears, and truly register what he was trying to tell her. "Of course I love you, Jonas, but… not like that. You're my copilot, and my family. We're a team. But I've never thought of you as…"

"As what? As a boyfriend? You said it yourself Sam, we're copilots. We're better than married. Come on…" He leaned in for another kiss, only for Sam to stop him again.

"I said no, Jonas." Her voice was hard, betraying nothing of her shaking nerves. She flipped her textbook shut, and gathered her papers. "I'm going to call it a night. See you tomorrow." She stood, and the world tipped alarmingly around her. Jack felt her sudden lethargy, the blurriness she tried to blink from her eyes. "Whoa."

"Sam?" Jonas had risen now, his face concerned. "You okay?"

Sam paused, taking stock. Every time the world seemed to level, one move from her sent it tipping again. "I… I don't know. I-" Her legs shook, then gave out. Jonas caught her easily and shifted her onto the bed.

"Easy, easy," he coaxed. "It'll pass, I promise."

Sam lay there, struggling to breathe as an invisible weight pressed against her chest. She blinked to clear her vision, the motion slow and laborious. "What's happening?"

The words slurred on her lips. Jonas reached up and smoothed sweat-plastered hair from her face. "It's just a little something I thought would make tonight a bit more fun," he told her. His voice remained light and conversational, warmed by a gentle smile. Sam's mind jumped from thoughts of strokes to the realization that there was nothing natural about this at all. The fog parted under a wave of adrenaline when she recalled the can of Diet Coke, now forgotten on the deck already half-finished. _Drugged_.

Realization slammed into Sam like a freight train, sending adrenaline coursing through her body. She lashed out, her fist catching him square in the jaw and sending him reeling onto the mattress. Sam surged to her feet and teetered towards the door, the deck swaying under her feet. Just as her fingers brushed the wheel Jonas snagged her from behind. He blocked the elbow she sluggishly jabbed towards his face, and tucked her into a neat arm bar. Sam writhed, reaching for any part of him she could get her free hand on, but he twisted away and tightened his hold, threatening to separate her shoulder.

Sam stilled instinctively. Jack felt thoughts of duty flicker across her muddled awareness: she needed her arm to pilot. Then the imminent threat of bodily harm took precedence. She clawed at him again, but now her arm felt sluggish, and the room around her grew steadily more distant. Soon, she was all but hanging in Jonas' grip.

Jonas released her, content that she no longer posed a threat. He hefted her into a more comfortable hold and placed her back on his bunk, carefully ensuring none of her limbs dangled off the edge. "I've been wanting to tell you for so long, Sammy. To say it out loud. But drifting together, it always felt like I didn't have to. You know me better than anyone else on the planet. I can barely remember a time before you." He kissed her tenderly. "You're everything to me," he whispered.

Tears gathered in Sam's eyes. They dripped down the sides of her face, her hands too heavy to dry them herself. Jonas took care of that, using both thumbs to brush them away before stroking her hair. "My Sam. My perfect Sam. We're made for each other. That's what I wanted to tell you tonight." His fingers trailed down her neck, traveling to the topmost button on her blouse. "Let me show you."

"Jonas-" Her voice ground like sandpaper against her throat. Her head swam but every touch burned her skin, searing itself across her dwindling awareness. "Please, Jonas, stop. I don't want this-" He silenced her with another kiss.

"Shh… C'mon, Sammy. Don't be such a spoilsport. You'll enjoy it, I promise. You'll see."

Whatever he'd given her worked quickly. She couldn't so much as twitch, and in moments her voice was gone. When Hanson's fingers tangled in Sam's hair, Jack fought to pull away, to break the connection. She wouldn't want anyone to see this, let alone him. But he wasn't in control. He was stuck, unable to close his eyes while Sam's were open.

The night blurred together in an avalanche of touches, some painful, some not. Jack felt Hanson's fingertips trailing across her collarbone as he reverently removed her blouse. The blunt tugging at her hips when he fumbled with her belt. Hot tears on her cheeks, ignored by Jonas. Even hotter shame, which only compounded as the hours passed. The drug kept her limp but semi-conscious, her thoughts fuzzy as the hours passed.

Full consciousness and movement didn't return to her until the early morning. Jonas slept on the mattress next to her, exhausted. Sometime in the night he had flung an arm across her stomach before he passed out, curled possessively around even as he drifted off. His breathing was deep and even, as though having her in his bed was the most natural thing in the world.

When she was sure she could stand without collapsing, Sam carefully extricated herself from the sheets and Hanson's arm. She gathered her discarded clothes and dressed as quickly and silently as she dared. A sob bubbled up in her throat as she did so, remaining locked behind a clenched jaw. When all that was left was her boots, she carried them in hand as she crept towards the door on silent feet.

"Sammy," Jonas' voice drifted sleepily from the bed. She froze with one hand on the door lock, the other clenching around the tops of her boots. Now, the numbness began to fade, bringing new aches to the surface. A new fear locked her muscles. She was standing, but shaky. If he tried to stop her from leaving… she didn't know if she could fend him off if he came after her again.

He remained under the sheets, flush and content. "Thank you for last night. We'll have to do it again sometime."

Sam's heart hammered in her chest. Without a word, she tugged on the wheel latch, and left both him and the room behind.

"Ranger Carter!" Pentecost's voice echoed faintly around her. Jack thought for a moment that the Marshal had called to her that morning as she left Jonas' barracks, but when he blinked the corridor wobbled, then faded back into Banshee's familiar connpod. He sucked in a deep desperate breath, and almost broke into tears himself when he felt his own body respond. "Sam!" Pentecost called again, spurring Jack into action.

"SAM!" Jack echoed the Marshal's shout, tapping the code to disengage from the interface. The memory felt like it had taken hours, but the mission clock indicated only a minute had passed. He lurched when his feet hit the deck, and stumbled to where Sam still hung motionless. "Sam! Listen to me! It's over." He reached to release her straps, only for her to jolt suddenly. "Sam?"

"Get away from me," she snarled. Her hands shoved him away.

Jack immediately stepped back. Hurt clawed at his insides. He didn't know what to say, or do, except to respect her request. He understood her reaction, felt his own skin crawling under the drive suit. Deep muscles ached from the phantom pain he'd felt in her memory; he felt invisible bruises, permanently seared in his mind. The tears gathering in his eyes brimmed and spilled over as Doctor Frasier ran in with a med team, her attention focused solely on Sam. No one looked at him as he wiped at his streaming eyes, throat locked into silence. In the brief privacy, the hurt sharpened to anger, and the urge to _do_ something overwhelmed all else. He turned on his heel and left the connpod, only one thought on his mind.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 15 Recap: On their next training mission following the defeat of Multo, Jack finds Jonas harrassing Sam in the corridor outside their connpod. Once in the connpod, Jonas continues to haragnue Sam over Banshee's headset, triggering a Random Access Brain Impulse Trigger and panic attack. Sam chases the rabbit and Jack is pulled along with her through the drift. Jack witnesses a vivid memory of Sam's assault at the hands of Jonas. The memory runs its course, and they regain awareness in Bella's connpod.**

 **WARNING: Violence, Language**

* * *

Sam didn't fully come out of her fugue until Janet's voice registered in her ears. Her heart raced, but her hands and limbs worked. She released herself from the drive interface, dropping heavily to her feet. Janet braced her when she stumbled; Sam pressed her hands into Janet's forearms, struggling to catch her breath.

"Dammit, I said _don't_ release the interface," Janet muttered, her fingers already looking for a pulse to monitor.

"Sorry," Sam whispered, struggling to regain her composure.

"Sam?" Janet looked up at the sound of her voice, her murmur brightening at the sign of alertness from her. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," she huffed. "I'm okay. I'm fine, I'm sorry…" She suddenly caught sight of Marshal Pentecost standing just behind Janet. "Sir," she clipped out, straightening to attention.

Pentecost stepped forward, still giving Janet room to work. "Are you alright?" His tone was not one of a Marshal, but someone who knew where she'd gone down the RABIT-hole, and understood.

"He saw," Sam blurted, shame flooding her cheeks. "He saw everything." She couldn't face O'Neill, knowing the pity that would be staring back at her. He- Her eyes raked the connpod, and beyond the med team and the Marshal, it was empty. He wasn't there. Everything she knew of O'Neill, from the drift and beyond, told her that he would be there, waiting, worried. Unless… " _Shit._ "

She tore off her helmet and dashed for the hatch. Janet called after her, but the Marshal's voice called the doctor off. Sam sprinted up the ramp, following the white painted line to the control room. She turned the last corner in front of LOCCENT's hatch and froze at the sight of Jack with his hands around Jonas' throat Jonas choked and gurgled, his bruised face turning purple. One hand clawed ineffectively at Jack's grip- the other dangled limply, broken.

"O'NEILL!" Sam propelled herself forward and tore O'Neill's hands away, her fingers digging into the sensitive nerves surrounding the delicate wrist bones for added incentive. "Stop!" she shouted. Jonas collapsed onto his back, coughing as he scrambled to put distance between himself and O'Neill. His nose bled heavily, coating his mouth and chin with blood. Jack lunged past Sam, dead set on inflicting more damage. She got around him again, planting herself between them with arms flung wide. "Jack, don't!"

"I'm gonna kill him!" Jack roared. Sam looked him in the eye and almost lost her footing when she saw the rage burning back at her. They held for a split second before his brimming eyes turned once more on Jonas. "You sick _bastard!"_

Sam kept herself between them. "Calm down!"

"NO! Not after what he did-!"

He tried to push past her again, and this time Sam grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. Before he could catch his bearings she slammed him up against the bulkhead, pinning him there with her forearm pressed across his chest. "I don't _need_ this!" she cried.

Finally, her voice cut through Jack's red haze. Whether it was the shrill of her voice or the wobble of emotion that fluttered her words, she didn't know. But he stopped, and looked at her, eyes wet. The fight bled from him, and his lips pressed into a shaking line. "I'm sorry." His voice cracked. "I'm so sorry."

Carter froze, unable to pull away. Her forearm across his chest was no longer a restraint, but support- for whom, she couldn't say. Her own bearing slipped, a sharp breath catching audibly on the sudden lump in her throat.

"Marshal on deck!" Tendo called out, heralding the arrival of Marshal Pentecost. A crowd was gathering now; more faces poked out of LOCCENT, Manhattan's team among them. Jonas clambered to his feet, cradling his arm. Sam slowly released Jack and only turned to attention when she was sure her face was still.

"Marshal, sir!" Jonas sputtered, spraying blood as he gasped for breath. "He's insane! He attacked me!"

"Ranger, I am still puzzling why the hell you were anywhere near the control room in the first place, let alone on comms!"

Hanson's finger pointed accusingly at Sam. "Proving what we already knew! Carter is unfit to pilot! Unstable-"

Pentecost stepped into Hanson's space, looking him dead in the eye. "The competency of any pilot is not your call to make, _Ranger,"_ he growled, spooking Hanson into immediate, but brief, silence. He recovered quickly, meeting the Marshal's glare yard for yard.

"With all due _respect_ , sir, if she weren't your pet dog, you'd be able to see she's a liability."

Carter froze, locking her eyes on the bulkhead across from her. Eyes turned on her, inspecting her flushed cheeks and trembling fingers. Jack clenched his fists in rage, consumed by the emotions forced on him through her memory. Sam felt what little of the base's esteem she'd won back the day before quickly evaporating. Jonas wasn't wrong. LOCCENT's records would show who had chased the RABIT. Anyone would be able to see how she'd dragged O'Neill down the hole with her.

The Marshal let her return to the pilot program because she'd promised she was ready. She had failed. The adrenaline still tingling down her fingers testified that she'd failed her test. She failed the Marshal and his expectations of her. She failed the program, in taking Banshee away from a more stable pilot. And most painfully, she had failed her copilot. The Marshal had one recourse to preserve the soundness of his judgement: Pentecost would have to demote her immediately, publicly, and then put her back into engineering. Sam swallowed, and steeled herself.

"What liability do you mean, Hanson?" Kowalsky asked, his voice carving through the sudden silence like a knife. Every gaze in the corridor turned from Sam to regard her unexpected defender. Ferretti nodded his agreement, coming to stand beside his copilot.

"Yeah," Lou chimed in. "Banshee is the best weapon in the entire fleet, thanks to Sam. Or maybe you were referring to the two kaiju she bagged on her first drop in two years."

"Ranger Carter saved our lives yesterday," Kowalsky continued. "And yours too, considering that Multo likely would have landed on your doorstep if Banshee hadn't been there."

"Everyone, _shut the hell up!_ " Pentecost barked. He jabbed two fingers at Team Manhattan, who both straightened visibly. "This is not a discussion, or some goddamned measuring contest." His pointing hand shifted to Hanson, who bristled in anticipation of the incoming reprimand. "And _you_. I've had just about enough of you. The next time you call my _personal_ relationships into question, you will answer to me, _personally_. And I guarantee you will not enjoy it."

He then turned to address Sam and Jack as well. "The three of you can expect official inquiries into today's events. In the meantime, you," he pointed at Jack, "will stay clear of Hanson, and you," he pointed again to Jonas, "will stay clear of both Ranger Carter and Ranger O'Neill. _Any_ attempt to violate these orders will be met with charges against the UCMJ." He regarded the three of them. "Am I understood?!"

"Yes, sir!" the three of them responded, Jonas trailing just enough behind to communicate his lack of respect. Pentecost ignored it.

"Team Banshee!" he barked. "Doctor Frasier has business with both you. Hanson, report to Doctor Warner. Dismissed!"

Pentecost waited, and for a second no one moved. Then, they all did at once. Reality slammed into Carter before she could even realize she'd been holding her breath. The lump in her throat had spread to her chest, tightening her ribs around her heart. Her pulse thundered in her ears, and she could still feel O'Neill's dark energy simmering beside her. Din rattled against the smooth concrete walls, pounding against her temples. Not giving O'Neill a chance to react, Sam ducked her head and escaped down the nearest corridor, ignoring Jack's intake of breath as he prepared to call her back. She left the stares and recrimination and Jonas behind her, and went anywhere they weren't.


	17. Chapter 17

**Warnings: None**

* * *

The Marshal called Jack to be his first victim. His heart pounded as he walked the gray mile, his tumultuous thoughts split between the fate awaiting him at the end of the hall and Sam's flight from LOCCENT. The look in her eyes sobered him. What he saw- his reaction, his need to grind Hanson's bones to dust had made it about him. However righteous his anger, it hadn't helped Sam. That was his regret. Not his attempts to kill Hanson, or his discharge figured was waiting for him in the Marshal's office.

He shook out his hands as he neared the Marshal's office; it wouldn't do him any favors to walk in with his fingers clenched into fists. Whatever he could salvage of his career, he would fight for it. Even if he could stay on as janitorial, Jack would do it. He didn't fear returning to the real world, where food was scarce and the kaiju posed an even greater threat than they did here in the Shatterdome. This time, he feared being alone- and that Carter would be left to fend for herself in the Shatterdome. The PPDC could live without him, but the same couldn't be said for Sam. Even if she wanted to leave, he wondered if they'd let her. She'd contributed too much, had too much potential to be set loose. She would be stuck here. His heart clenched painfully as he came to a stop in front of the Marshal's door. She'd be alone, as she had been for the past two years. All because he'd failed to keep a lid on his temper.

The echoes of Sam's memory ached and twinged as Jack walked, a phantom reminder of the short drop into her past. Even now it played on a vivid loop in his head, over and over, every detail as sharp as though it had happened yesterday. Carter had carried that with her for the past two years. It wasn't even his memory, and yet he still had the smell of Hanson's cologne cloying at his nostrils. How the hell had Carter lived with it?

Jack knocked on the Marshal's door, suppressing a cringe at Pentecost's cutting call from within. "Enter!"

"Ranger O'Neill, reporting as ordered!" Jack recited, presenting a parade ground salute. Pentecost let him stand there a good thirty seconds before lifting his attention from the file on his desk.

"Ranger, do I need to tell you how many protocols you violated today?" He asked finally.

Jack dropped his arm, but remained stiff at attention. "No, Sir."

"As it is, I have grounds to discipline you on all of them, between video footage and eyewitness accounts. You attacked Hanson unprovoked-"

"Unprovoked?!" Jack scoffed, unable to contain his contempt.

"UNPROVOKED!" Pentecost boomed. "You sought Hanson out and attacked him without provocation! His misconduct in LOCCENT is not reason enough to assault a fellow Ranger!" He paused, rising from his desk to look Jack in the eye. "Unless, there is something you feel you need to share that will help your case?"

Jack opened his mouth, ready to illustrate exactly what happened. The knowledge might save his career- the Marshal certainly held no love for Hanson. That moment when Jonas dug at Pentecost's personal involvement with Sam was the closes Jack had ever seen a commanding officer come to committing cold blooded murder. More than that, the Marshal _should_ know what had happened to the best officer under his command, who had been forced to live on the same base as her attacker for two years while Hanson tore her reputation to shreds, all while Jonas was allowed to continue his life as usual instead of rotting behind bars.

The words caught in his throat before he could voice them. The Marshal cared about Sam. He'd gathered that much from the night in the infirmary when he reassigned Carter to Banshee. Jonas wouldn't be on base if the Marshal knew. Sam never told him.

In that moment, the decision was no longer his. Jack may have experienced Sam's rape as if it were his own, but it was _not_ his. The drift had pulled him into her past, violated her privacy without either of their permissions. Jack couldn't help that it had happened. He wasn't her avenger- his job was to support her, and protect her however he could, for as long as he could. That started with respecting her privacy now. Jack's mouth shut with an audible click.

"Well, Ranger?" Pentecost insisted. "Anything to add?"

"No, sir." Jack stared straight ahead.

"Are you sure about that?" The Marshal pressed, leaning closer.

"Jack lifted his chin stubbornly. "Yes, sir."

"And yet you are unrepentant." The neutral observation drained the color from Jack's cheek. In the Academy, such an observation would be followed by an exercise in humility, and if Pentecost got it in his head to make him apologize to Hanson… The thought sent ice down his spine. Could he do it? Even if it meant saving his career as a pilot, meant he'd be able to stay with Carter, could he stand there and stare Hanson straight in his smirking face and apologize, both of them knowing what Hanson had done?

"You're dismissed."

Pentecost's verdict sliced through Jack's silent dilemma. "Sir, yes, s-" Jack froze, uncertain that he'd heard correctly. "Sir?"

"You heard me, Ranger." Pentecost growled. Still, Jack hesitated. Would he be receiving his punishment later, or…? "You have received your verbal reprimand, and are hereby warned that any further antics will result in your immediate transfer from this Shatterdome. You are now dismissed, unless you make me repeat myself one more time."

Jack didn't need any further prompting. "Yes, sir!" He got as far as the hatch before pausing. "Sir?"

"Tempting fate today, are you Ranger? Came the menacing response. Jack turned to face him.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"I believe you had that opportunity already," Pentecost pointed out, but did not refuse outright. After a reluctant pause, he relented. "Proceed, Ranger, but watch the very thin ice you're standing on."

"Yes, sir," Jack affirmed. "Ranger Carter said that I was selected to test with Hanson because of my test scores in the simulator. But you had to have known that wasn't enough, not even with Banshee's mods. You still needed some compatibility, to give the mods a chance to work." He swallowed, steadying himself. "Why did you choose me, sir? What did you see in me or my file that suggested I would be even remotely compatible with him? There are plenty of warm bodies you could have chosen from if that's what you needed. So why me? "

"One of the few joys of my job," Pentecost delivered slowly, "is that I do not have to explain my decisions to a mere Ranger."

"Yes, sir, but why waste the time, or the resources bringing me in when I was so obviously mismatched?"

Pentecost folded his hands atop his desk, leveling a very hard look at O'Neill. "Is that what you consider your time here to be? A waste?" His chin lowered, intensifying his gaze ten-fold. "I suggest you think very hard before you answer."

Jack's gut flopped in his belly. But when he looked past the Marshal's stern glare, he saw not a warning to watch what he said next, but to _think_. His thoughts churned, trying to find the obvious fact that the Marshal suggested was there. When it clicked, it sparkled like lightning.

The Marshal never once mentioned Hanson by name at the academy. In fact, the first Jack heard who was to be his copilot was from Hanson himself. The Marshal's relative disinterest in the _kwoon_ match had made some logical sense after what Carter had confided about Banshee's lowered drift quotient, but made even more sense in another light altogether.

"You weren't recruiting for Hanson at all, were you?"

The Marshal picked up his pen. "Dismissed, Ranger."

Jack bit back a grin. "Yes, sir."

He exited the Marshal's office with his secret tucked close to his heart. As he walked away, his light steps tempoed his thoughts as he retraced every word that had brought him here, and each moment spread a warmth through his chest. Pentecost had phased Carter in after the mess hall brawl without batting an eye. The transition had been almost seamless. Almost as if he'd expected it all along.


	18. Chapter 18

**Warnings: None**

* * *

Jack's elation deflated quickly as he made his way towards Carter's bunk. He only knew where it was from the echo of where she'd headed after leaving Hanson's bunk that horrible morning. His knocks went unanswered. Perhaps she was sleeping. He hoped so, because the only alternative was that she wanted to avoid him.

"Sam?" he called, knocking one more time. Maybe if she knew it was him… but the door remained locked, and pressing his ear to the metal hatch didn't reveal a single whisper of sound from within. Discouraged, his own bunk no longer held any appeal. Instead he gravitated towards the Jaeger bay, following the familiar black and purple path to Belladonna Banshee.

Instinct took him to the familiar secluded area of Banshee's bay, and found Sam in the shadows, sitting on the deck with her back to the rail and Bella beyond. Jack's body still ached, and flashes of the memory he'd witnessed darted around his brain. From the bruises under Sam's eyes, and the pallor of her skin in the murky dark, Jack knew she wasn't faring any better.

She looked up at his approach, but seemed unsurprised to see him. Her eyes skittered away, unable to rest on him for long. She made no protest except to hug her knees tighter to her chest when he carefully eased himself down onto the deck next to her. Words piled up in his throat, lodging against the lump that formed there.

"Sam, I-"

"Please," she croaked, "don't." Her breath hitched ominously, but her eyes remained dry. "Just… don't."

Jack's apology died in his throat, as did all the reassurances he'd meant to follow up with. Promises that he still trusted her, still respected her. The rage he swore he'd keep to himself, but probably wouldn't have if she'd let him gain even an inch of traction.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Carter croaked. "I never- I didn't mean to bring that into the drift."

"I know," he said quickly. "And I know you tried to protect me from it. When we first drifted, I felt how distant you were. Figured you were a private person."

Sam huffed, a laugh without mirth. She reached down to flick a stray washer across the grated floor with one fingertip. Her chin rested on top of her knees, her eyes swollen and heavy. "Now you know why." Then she shook her head sharply, turning away from him. "I should have known better."

"Sam…"

"I shouldn't have gotten your hopes up."

Jack froze. "What? No, wait, Sam- I got a reprimand, and probably a black mark in my record the size of my fist, but I'm still in. The Marshal let me stay with Bella. We can still-"

"I'm not doing that again."

Her voice cracked, and this time the tears started rolling. Sam tried to bury her face in her arms before he could see, but it didn't work. The sight of it stabbed a knife into Jack's heart. He couldn't breathe. Nothing he could say could erase the pain of that memory; a memory she had kept so secret not even the Marshal knew. Jack wondered then, if the Marshal had figured it out on his own. The images and sensations of her past played again in Jack's head, twisting his insides into knots. Even now, it remained so vivid, every detail crystalline in his mind's eye. From the tinny taste of the diet coke to the calendar date hanging on the wall-

Jack froze. He didn't notice the date in the drift. Sam had glimpsed it only briefly, before the world started spinning when she stood to leave. But now he did. April 30th, 2026. A deep, horrible knowing clicked into being.

"May Day…"

"Don't," Carter repeated, this time a plea. Jack obeyed, swallowing his realization. Athos hit the breach less than 24 hours after she woke up in Hanson's bed, dazed and more alone than she had ever been. Less than 24 hours after Hanson attacked her, she'd been asked to drift with him, and Sam had tried. It was no surprise to Jack now that she had failed.

They sat in silence for a long while. Jack had no words that could help her, so he kept them to himself, grateful that she even let him stay with her. After some time, her chin lifted again, and she wiped her eyes. "Cameron Mitchell was my best friend," she croaked. "I stood with him at his wedding."

Jack knew that. The half-remembered whispers of Sam's awareness that day flickered through his brain. Ranger Mitchell and his wife Vala Mal Doran piloted Whiskey Blue for three years. Together, they had vied with Banshee for highest kill rate in the fleet, right up until they immolated to take Athos out with them.

"They died because of me."

Jack ignored the urge to protest. The last thing she needed was to argue about the assignment of blame, and nothing he said would make her guilt disappear. No, what he wanted her to know was that he was on her side.

"I didn't tell the Marshal what happened," he told her. He watched her face carefully, noting the way her lips thinned. "He already knows?"

She pulled her knees tighter to her chest. "He asked, once, what changed. I told him everything."

Jack heard the self-reproach in her voice, for telling the one person whose regard mattered the most to her. He understood now how close they were, far closer than a commanding officer and subordinate ought to be. "He didn't do _anything_?"

"What would it have done?" she asked bitterly. "The Shatterdome would have been down another pilot, and within days Jonas had made sure the entire base knew I was the reason Whiskey Blue fell."

"Sam…"

"Why would they believe me? I should have seen it coming, right? How could I not? We practically lived in each other's thoughts. Either I was too naive to recognize his feelings or I gave him a signal he misinterpreted."

"Bullshit." Jack clenched his fist, and fought to keep himself calm. He pushed against the rail behind him, stretching his legs out in front of him. "There wasn't anything that was missed or misinterpreted. You're not an idiot, and neither is he. He wanted something and told himself whatever he needed to hear to justify it. That's the bottom line. It doesn't matter what kind of vibes he thought he sent you in the drift- you said _no_."

Carter didn't respond. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack looked at her, really looked at her. The light, happy laugh he'd heard in her memory had no home in the shuttered expression she wore now. Even the slightest upturn of her lips seemed a herculean effort to her now. Jack treasured the smiles he'd earned from her all the more now. That beaming grin in the connpod after defeating Multo he now knew had been the true Sam, one who seemed very far away now. He could read every line of exhaustion in her body. Not just from the scene in the connpod, but the past two years of weathering attacks from every side, alone.

"Carter, listen to me, okay?" Jack looked at her intently, but she kept her attention fixed on the top of her knees. He forged ahead regardless. "You were right to trust him."

She froze. "Excuse me?"

"I might not have been there, but it feels like I was. I saw what you saw, and felt- what you felt." His voice caught ominously, making her flinch. "Right up until that moment he was your copilot, your partner. Every point you just gave about being in each other's thoughts were reasons to trust him, not suspect him. You had absolutely no reason to doubt him. He made sure of it."

Her fist clenched tightly against the fabric of her trousers, knuckles paling to a ghostly white. "There was nothing you did or didn't do that could explain, or justify what he did. That's on him. All of it. And he deserves worse than he got."

Jack wanted to kill him. Break his bones and cripple him. Ruin Hanson's name as thoroughly as he had hers. But as he sat there, gazing at Carter and seeing the faint tremors vibrating across her frame, thoughts of Jonas- maimed or otherwise- slowly drifted away, until there was nothing in his thoughts but her. She didn't need retribution, Jack realized. She needed a friend.

"I'll follow your lead on this one, Sam. It's your business. You don't need me or anyone else telling you what you should do." She didn't respond. All he heard was a sharp hitch in her breath, but when he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, her tears hadn't fallen. They glittered on her lashes, only to be brushed away by an angry hand when she caught him looking.

"If you want to walk away from the pilot's chair," he continued, "I understand. I'll honor your choice. But for whatever it's worth… I don't think you should."

"Today was proof I shouldn't be in the drift."

"Today was proof that Jonas knows which buttons to push," Jack countered gently. Still she flinched, which cracked his heart open a little bit more. "I have never seen anyone with as much control in the drift as you. The way your mind works blows me away. If Jonas hadn't cornered you in the corridor beforehand, and if he hadn't gotten his hands on an open comm, today never would have happened."

"But it did."

Jack nodded. "Yeah. So what's the worst that could happen now? Even if Jonas tries a repeat of today- which won't happen, because Tendo isn't going to let him anywhere near the control room- I've already seen what you tried to protect me from."

Carter didn't respond. She plucked at a loose thread poking up from her knee, her features dark. "After Multo- you were happy, Sam. I felt it when we took down Multo. Being in a Jaeger is like breathing for you, and I think giving it up would hurt you. I will respect any decision you make. I just want you to be sure it's what you want. Not what you think is best for me, or for the program. You deserve to be happy."

Tears gathered in her eyes. Jack reached out to grasp her hand gently. To his pleasant surprise, she didn't pull away. Her fingers twined with his, returning the squeeze with the slightest of pressure. "Let yourself be happy, Sam. Choose what you want… I'll stand with you, whatever you decide. You're not alone. Not anymore."

In the shadow of Belladonna Banshee, Samantha Carter heaved a shaking sigh. Their palms warmed together, and Jack hoped she let herself believe he meant it. Their shoulders were already touching, but soon Jack felt the pressure of her leaning ever so slightly against him. He never meant to witness the horror of that night, and even now he wished he hadn't, if it would have spared Carter from reliving it even once. But it had happened. He could turn it into something to help her, if Sam would let him. And maybe, just maybe… she would.


	19. Chapter 19

**Warnings: Language, Kaiju Violence**

* * *

For the next week, Carter kept herself scarce. Jack knocked on her door every day at varying times, but she remained behind closed doors. He tried to convince himself that her seclusion had nothing to do with their talk on the catwalk, but as each day passed the kernel of doubt planted by her reluctance to pilot again worked its way deeper into Jack's consciousness. He distracted himself by working in the _kwoon_ with Teal'c and Team Manhattan.

"What did Pentecost have to say?" Ferretti asked during one of their sparring breaks. "About the thing with you and Hanson?"

"Mark in my record. Verbal reprimand," Jack panted, taking a swig of water. Manhattan's team had found their to Jack's good graces since their defense of Sam outside LOCCENT. Ferretti's amiability in particular eased the dread niggling at the back of his mind each day Carter remained secluded. Both he and Kowalsky seemed to have come to their senses where Hanson was concerned. Jack hadn't seen them with him once since that day.

"Hanson was griping about that to anyone who would listen. Rumor is he got the same. Plus a broken arm." Lou gave him a curious look. "What the hell happened?"

" _He_ knows," Jack growled. "Bastard deserved more than that."

Lou stared, but ultimately decided he wasn't going to get any more details. "That's all fine, I guess. But did you have to break his arm? He won't stop whining about it to anyone within a five meter radius."

Jack shrugged. "Not my problem." The base had gladly listened when Jonas was talking shit about Carter. They could stand to listen to his bitch-ass complaining too.

"All I meant was, couldn't you have busted his jaw instead?" Silence met Lou's attempt at a joke. He took another swallow of water. "You've sure changed your tune, haven't you?"

"Now that my career doesn't hinge on Hanson deigning to pilot with me? Yeah, you could say that. The guy is a bastard, and a bully." And much worse. He didn't deserve to be breathing the same air as Carter, let alone use it to publicly defame her. Jack forced himself to abandon his darkening thoughts when he noticed Ferretti's curious stare. "Let's go again."

"Sure," Ferretti agreed easily. He dropped his towel on the mat, and joined Jack back in the ring. "Just try not to break my arm-"

The shrill alarm of imminent attack interrupted his joke. They both stopped where they were, waiting for the deployment assignment. The familiar sense of mingled dread and excitement washed over Jack, a feeling he saw mirrored in Ferretti's anticipatory expression. The sensation seemed unique to Jaeger pilots: the gravity of a kaiju attack, and the destruction and casualties it would inevitably inflict, coupled with the addictive thrill of moving a Jaeger all rolled into one singular sensation. Jack hoped that Banshee was still on the roster.

"Breach anomaly detected," a mechanically female voice announced over the basewide communications. "Belladonna Banshee, please report to Bay 3."

Jack grinned, and shot an apologetic glance to Ferretti, who shrugged. "Can't say I'm surprised, after Multo. Go kick ass, man."

"Double event detected," the voice added, filling the kwoon with its tinny sound. "Manhattan Bombshell, please report to Bay 5."

Ferretti's face broke into a wide grin. "Right on!"

They bumped fists before Jack gathered his towel and water and bolted from the kwoon. He sneaked a brief shower in before heading to Bay 3's prep room. When he entered, he was greeted by the sight of Carter halfway suited up, technicians moving around her as they began attaching the armor plating to the circuitry layer.

"You're late," she called. The smirk she sent his way blunted the accusation. Jack grinned back, the tight ball of dread loosening. They were back in action.

"Sorry about that, ma'am." He quickly stripped to his skivvies and stepped into the circuitry layer that LCpl Anwar held open for and the rest of his technicians soon swarmed around him as well, efficiently preparing him for the drop. He raised himself up onto his tiptoes to meet her eyes over their heads. "I knocked at your door. When you didn't answer, I thought…"

"I've been helping with some of the repairs on Manhattan," she explained. Then she paused. "Do you even know which bunk is mine?"

Jack swallowed. "Um… Red 23? Over in East block?"

Sam's eyes sparkled with mirth as she shook her head. "I moved to the engineering barracks when I switched tracks. Blue 66. As far as I know, they never filled my old bunk."

Jack froze. "You mean… I've been knocking on an empty room all week?"

Sam giggled, and nodded. "'Fraid so."

Jack feigned annoyance, but soon lapsed into a grin of his own. "Should have figured you were in one of the bays anyway. It is where we seem to find each other, isn't it?"

"I guess so."

They finished suiting up in companionable silence, and soon walked shoulder to shoulder down the corridor to Banshee's connpod. As they neared the hatch, Jack's muscles tightened in anticipation, just waiting for Jonas to pop out from behind the next corner. He almost wished he would, just to have an excuse to beat the guy to death. But the man waiting for them at the end of the corridor wasn't Jonas, but Marshal Pentecost himself.

Jack and Sam slowed to stand at attention. The Marshal's gaze flickered between the two of them briefly before narrowing on Sam. "Are you okay with this?" he asked solemnly. If she needed an out, this was it. There wasn't an ounce of doubt in his voice, nothing to suggest he believed her less than capable in her ability to pilot, but if she took it, the Marshal would honor it.

"Yes, sir," she replied, voice strong and sure. Jack wondered which man she was speaking to- her commanding officer, or someone who cared for her. Pentecost seemed to share the same concern. He stepped closer, softening perceptibly.

"I'm not asking as your commander, Sam. Are you sure you want this?"

To her credit, Carter didn't hesitate. "I'm sure," she said, this time meeting his eyes directly. A soft smile served as added reassurance.

Pentecost searched her gaze, and finally nodded. "We'll keep the control room down to essential personnel." His unspoken meaning was clear. Hanson would not be making a reappearance.

Carter shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me, Marshal." Her gaze traveled to Jack, who gave a solemn nod. After their trip down the RABIT-hole, Hanson would be hard-pressed to find something else that packed the same punch. Still, keeping Bella a safe space for Carter felt right. It could be a place for just for them. Just her, him, and the drift.

After a long moment, Pentecost's features softened as they focused on Sam alone. Jack froze, suddenly feeling very much like a voyeur as the Marshal extended his hand to cup Sam's cheek. "I'm proud of you, Sam."

Carter's eyes shone, her cheeks flushing with pride and adoration. "Thank you, Marshal," she whispered.

Finally, he stepped back with a nod. "Proceed to your posts, Banshee. Godspeed."

Carter's confidence lasted until they reached the connpod. In front of the hatch she paused. Jack saw her weariness plainly; the physical toll of chasing the RABIT mere days ago was strain enough, but the emotional toll worried him more. Her eyes were dry, her tears spent, but there was no denying that she wasn't quite right yet. Jack's breath hitched nervously. Maybe they should have taken the Marshal up on his offer. As soon as he thought it, Jack dismissed the idea. Not even Manhattan could face a double event alone.

Carter beat him to the punch. "Let's go."

Once inside, there was no hesitation. They moved to their places and strapped in, waiting for LOCCENT to cue the neural handshake.

"Smooth and steady as always," Tendo acknowledged. "You are clear to initiate neural handshake, on your mark."

Cater inhaled. "Initiating handshake in 3, 2, 1-mark."

Jack anticipated being the last to calibrate, as he always was, but on Carter's mark he felt a sickening jolt as he was sucked into his thoughts and into a deluge of images, smells, sounds Too many passed in a blur, but some solidified into something recognizable.

He saw Carter's father placing a flower on her mother's gravestone, felt her small hand gripped too tight in Jacob's larger one.

His own mother leaving to get milk, never to return.

They sat on the lap of Sam's father as Marshal Pentecost passed her a Christmas gift. Small fingers unwrapped the gift to reveal a detailed to replica of Brawler Yukon, the same figure that still sat on the ledge above her bunk.

They felt the sickening drop of Jack's stomach when he'd last seen his father, the day he left for the Academy and was told to not bother coming back.

The tears on Sam's cheeks as she pelted towards her father's Jaeger, the cold bite of Pentecost's drivesuit against her cheek when she flung her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his chest. Jack saw the Marshal's shell-shocked expression, that of a man whose mind had touched death.

There were no tears on Sam's cheeks when Pentecost bequeathed to her the folded flag of the PPDC at her father's funeral, where she stood between matching headstones.

The heartache shifted briefly to Jack's joy at finding brotherhood among his friends at the Academy- only to face similar loneliness when those friends washed out or graduated without him.

Sam's shock watching Whiskey burn; his struggle to pilot with an incompatible partner. The euphoria of their first fight against Multo. Then finally, the peace of that night in Bella's shadow, the press of their shoulders as Sam allowed him to simply be there with her.

They both spasmed in their harnesses when their minds snapped back into their bodies, but they didn't separate. Their minds remained connected, the other's presence an echo of their own thoughts.

"Whoa," Carter breathed. Her amazement echoed his own, a floaty feeling that made their limbs light. Jack cleared his throat.

"LOCCENT, neural bridge is complete." His voice still cracked.

"No shit," Tendo replied after a heady beat. "Guys, I don't know what the hell you did, but I've never seen numbers like these." He paused. "Ever." Sam and Jack shared a look of mutual feigned indifference.

Sam shrugged. "Nothing like a rabbit hunt to bring two people together," she quipped. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Both signatures have changed headings," Tendo informed them. "Looks like they're going to make landfall in LA."

Jack swallowed a curse. Los Angeles remained one of the largest population centers on the West Coast. Large buildings packed closely together, limited evacuation capability… they had bunkers, but still… No matter what happened out there, people would die.

"Can we beat them there?" Sam asked, her fingers flying to bring up the readouts she needed. If they could beat the kaiju to the Miracle Mile, then they had a chance at preventing any casualties.

Tendo dashed that hope with a brief response. "Negative."

Carter's disappointment coursed through the drift, a wave of grief for the lives about to be lost washing over Jack before it pulled back, replaced by businesslike clarity. "Standing by for tethers."

Jack barely felt the motion when the choppers lifted them up and out of the bay. He sensed Carter deactivate Banshee's response sensors, giving them some room to fidget without having Banshee follow suit. Jack pulled up the news feeds; if the kaiju were going to make landfall first, then there would be no chance of them being surprised in the waves like they had been with Multo.

"Codenames are Baubas and Zhen," Tendo informed them, pulling the sonar images onto their HUDs. Zhen looked far from intimidating. It had a long tail with a vicious stinger on the end of it, not unlike a scorpions, but the broad wings extended to either side gave it the look a manta ray, despite the double row of exoskeletal legs tucked up against its body. Its companion was far more formidable at first glance. Bulbous armor plating ballooned around Baubas' shoulders, sectioned and flexing as the beast swam for the surface. A short horn sat on the tip of its blunted snout, its head seeming to sprout directly from its shoulders without a neck. Long webbed claws propelled it through the water, and as it swam, Jack realized that the most unnatural element of the beast was the opposing joints of its elbows and wrists. It's claws folded in the opposite direction than its elbows. Zhen easily outpaced it out of frame.

"Someone's got a hitch in their giddy-up," Kowalsky commented over their open comms. "Which one strikes your fancy, Banshee?"

Jack looked to Carter who smirked and keyed her own comms. "Nice try, Manhattan. Age before beauty."

Kowalsky chuckled. "It was worth a shot." They keyed off a moment later, leaving the two of them in quiet solitude, with nothing but the thump of the chopper's rotor blades outside the hull to break the silence.

"I don't get it," Jack confessed.

"It's an old San Diego superstition," his partner explained, her hands remaining busy as she checked her systems. " _First to call, first to fall._ "

Jack blinked. "They _want_ us to fall?" _Son of a bitch._ Over the past week he'd come to like Kowalsky and Ferretti, and now this?

"Relax," Sam assured him. "It's bogus. They were just welcoming me back."

Jack absorbed that information, and all it entailed. It certainly implied she and Manhattan had been tight before May Day. And yet they had bought into Hanson's bull without questioning it even once? Jack found that hard to believe, except… Mitchell had died. Grief could do strange things to people.

"Stop." Carter's voice cut through his dwindling temper. He looked at her, chagrined. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't afford to go there right now. I need a clear head," she told him, her voice betraying her exhaustion. "Let's focus on L.A., okay?"

"Okay," he agreed readily. "Sorry."

A thin smile thanked him. "I know."

The drift was an amazing thing, wasn't it? Though he intended to continue remaining vocal as she'd first requested, he sincerely doubted they needed it. The stories were true; Jack reveled in his own privilege. The deluge of memories had felt like his own; selfishly, he wished they were. Grief and loss featured prominently, but in them Jack sensed that when her father had lived Carter's life had been full of love and laughter. He wondered what she thought about what she'd seen of his own father.

Next to hers spent in the Shatterdome, Jack's life on a farm with a father who cursed him as the reason his mother had walked out, and cursed the government just because, must pale in comparison. His home had been far from the coast, where kaiju were a distant concept, and nutters like his dad could claim that they were a fabrication of the media, designed to keep them cowed into obedience to the federal government who took their food and rationed it back in pieces. If he were honest with himself, Bella's connpod felt more like home than that farm ever had. And Carter felt more like family than his pa ever did.

"I know what you mean," Sam said softly. Jack's gaze flew to her, but she studiously avoided his gaze, focusing instead on prepping Banshee for the drop.

"Baubas has made landfall," Tendo announced. They were only ten minutes out themselves, but they both paused to take a look at the news feed following the kaiju's path of destruction. Baubas looked more ridiculous out of the water than under it; its hindquarters weren't quite strong enough to support its massive trunk, forcing it to move in heavy hopping lunges as it used its front claws to pull itself forward. It looked almost like a defect, but they soon realized the purpose of its strange looking appendages. The news helicopters followed its movement, as it waggled its head left and right, searching for something. Then it paused, staring intently at the ground.

"Shit," Sam cursed. "It's a digger," she realized. "It's going for the-"

"Baubas is digging out the District 5 community shelter!" Tendo called. "It-" As they watched, the pavement cracked and collapsed under just a few powerful strokes of its claws. The awkward bend of its joints efficiently pulled the dirt and rock away while its pointed nose rooted through the debris, seeking its prey.

"Where are the MIGs?" Sam whispered, horrified. She clicked the comm to Tendo. "Where are the goddamn MIGs?!"

As though summoned, the advance flight squadron zoomed through the frame, deploying a barrage of missiles that peppered the beast's hide. The armored plating that had been so unwieldy underwater protected the kaiju. Baubas continued to dig, as though it hadn't even felt the attack.

It was a tank, Jack realized. One with the potential to give Manhattan a run for its money. Banshee would have better luck against it. Banshee was smaller by at least two dozen meters, but she was quick, and had a better chance of landing blows around the armor. Manhattan was limited to blunt force; it's blows would bounce right off those plates. They'd been hoping to hold Banshee in reserve, rather than confirm her increased speed. They may not have the luxury.

"Sam," Jack said, a thought occurring to him. "Is there a way we can limit Banshee's response time? Get us back down to average? Maybe they'll think last time was a fluke. Or at the very least, we can pull it out at the last minute for an ace in the hole if things get dicey."

Blue eyes blinked. "Yeah. Yeah, we can. Good idea." Two good ideas in as many drops. Not too shabby. "It'll take me a minute to…Whoa!" Banshee lurched suddenly as one of the helos lost control. "What the-AUGH!" The helo slammed into their right shoulder in an explosion of fire; its rotary blades sliced into the narrow pocket where the joining cables were exposed. Jack felt the pain, but Sam took the brunt of it, and cried out in pain.

"Sam!" _Goddammit_. What the hell happened?

"Banshee!" Kowalsky called, fire in his voice. "Zhen took out one of your choppers. Drop! Drop!"

"Disengaging!" Carter called, pushing through the pain to focus on the imminent threat.

Jack tapped his comms. "Manhattan, we've got this! Get Baubas out of the city!" It was all he could get out before his stomach launched into his throat as Banshee dropped. The video feed flipped to footage of their transport, where they watched Zhen's narrow shape slither overhead where their helm had been an instant before. Then they hit ocean floor with a resounding shudder, quickly finding their feet on the bedrock. They were only a little past the mile; immediately they began to move towards the higher ground, keeping one eye on the sensors.

"Sam?!" Jack called, sensing the continuing sizzle of fried systems.

"I'm okay!" she called back, giving her arm an experimental roll. Banshee mimicked the motion, sparking but functional. "We're good!" Alarm jangled through their connection. "It's on our-!"

Zhen slammed into their back, pitching them forward. Banshee could have weathered the hit, but they rolled with the momentum, letting it carry them through the waves towards the mile mark. Their vents sputtered, expelling the seawater that had forced its way through.

"Son of a… Where the hell-"

"There!" They pivoted and caught Zhen by the throat and thorax before it could connect, and heaved it closer to shore. "Cannon loading!" Zhen writhed in the waves and turned to face them. It was longer than the sonar had depicted. Its ray's wings propelled it quickly through the water, making Jack desperately want to find dry land. Trouble was, there was nowhere on the coast they could make land without causing as much damage as the kaiju. They'd have to make do.

The plasma cannon glowed in the periphery of their visual feed, ready to fire. Zhen roared, and then sped through the water. "Shadowcloak, on my mark!" Carter called, typing the command into the interface. She paused, then slammed the button. "Go!" Vents opened across Bella's hull, releasing a dense cloud of black fog that hung in place, framing their outline. As soon as they were obscured they sidestepped to avoid the pounce Zhen made for the dark shape they'd been.

"Fire!" The cannon pulsed, discharging bursts of energy into Zhen's sinuous length, peppering it stem to stern with weapons fire as it passed. The beast shrieked, rearing up and nearly folding itself in half backwards as it instinctively sought the new threat. Upon realizing it was the same threat, its teeth gnashed in challenge.

"Ugly son of a…" Jack muttered, then surged forward with Carter to meet the creature head on, fists to hide. They misjudged the distance, and walked right into a coil of tail. Banshee rolled as the snake bound them like a boa constrictor. Zhen's stinger lashed at their helm, but failed to make so much as a dent, unable to get the force it needed to puncture the hull. Its jaws closed on Bella's torso and clamped down. Bella's titanium hull groaned, then popped as Zhen's teeth punctured through.

Jack's scream tangled with Carter's. Their cannon lay trapped in the beast's jaws as well; they put their combined force behind their remaining free arm, which was already sluggish with damage. They scraped at the beast's eyes, but missed repeatedly, only to lose purchase altogether as the kaiju surged upward. Their video monitors still displayed the footage recorded by the support helicopters- Jack watched as the forward edge of the kaiju's ray-like fins strained sickeningly, then lengthened as a folded hinge extended into a full set of flight-wings. In two powerful beats, the beast began to rise, carrying Banshee and her pilots higher and higher.

"Oh, shit," Carter gasped. Their dials and meters beeped and screamed as the earth fell away from them. In seconds, Jack saw clouds push past their view screen to reveal the stars. Frigid cold seeped into the hull through the holes made by Zhen's teeth, which continued to chomp on them, grinding on metal and cables. Through the agony Jack wondered if they were even still in atmo anymore- of all the readouts and indicators, not one of them was an altimeter. Somehow, no one had thought the Jaegers would fly. A particularly gruesome crunch reverberated through the hull, and for a heart stopping moment Jack thought his own spine had broken. The pain receivers in their suits went dead, but Carter's cry lingered in Jack's ears, until a new sensation pulled his attention. Their plasma cannon shifted position, angling directly down the kaiju's throat. A heartbeat later, Carter realized it too.

"Fire, fire, fire!"

They squeezed off burst after burst into the back of Zhen's throat. The beast shuddered, dropping them almost immediately. Carter snapped their arm up and caught hold of its snout, giving Jack time to empty the cannon down its gullet. Zhen writhed in agony, screeching so loud Jack felt his teeth vibrate. Just as Jack saw the final bursts tear through the Zhen's spine and out the other side, it gave one final spasm. Its tail swung wildly, and lodged its stinger deep into Banshee's hull.

This time, their screams mingled with Zhen's final roar, and then they both were falling. The stinger came loose, sending knives of agony through their drivesuits.

"Sam!" Jack shouted, just as gravity kicked in. Their stomachs lurched at sudden freefall but quickly steadied as they reached terminal velocity. The alarm didn't abate. There was a lot a Jaeger could do, but surviving a meteor strike- as the meteor-wasn't one of them.

"Okay, next upgrade is gonna be a pair of wings, okay?" Jack huffed. Sam gave him a look, panting heavily as sweat dripped into her eyes. "Or a jet pack! I'm flexible."

For a brief moment, Jack caught a breathless glimpse of space before the heat of reentry swallowed their screens in orange fire. A second after that, the screens shut off entirely, leaving them with a blank bulkhead and nothing but the blinking sensors going berserk. Jack's fingers flew across his console, trying to get an accurate read of their remaining sensors. They were in complete freefall, tumbling on more than one axis. The numbers flashing at him were pure chaos, but the one that alarmed Jack the most was the heat building up in the hull. The temperature climbed alarmingly.

"Sam…"

"I see it," she responded. "LOCCENT! This is Banshee! Do you read?" Static responded, sharp and sputtering, distorted by the friction of reentry. Carter cursed, and Jack felt the doubt beginning to creep over her. They had no location, no orientation. Their eyes met, resignation heavy in their gaze. They weren't walking away from this. "LOCCENT, this is Banshee. Do you copy?" The static sputtered, then continued to crackle. "Damn it!" Jack tried to keep up as her mind raced, spotting and disregarding ideas at a mind-bending pace.

"Sam!" Pentecost's voice hissed over the comms, faint and indistinct. Sam jerked, reaching sharply for the comms.

"Marshal!" She called back, only to be answered by more static.

After a long moment, the Marshal's voice came again, fuzzed and almost indiscernible. "...Remember- Whiskey!"

Jack blinked. The only Whiskey he knew was Whiskey Blue; how could reminding Sam of May Day be of any use at all? To his surprise, however, when Sam's mind made the connection, her reaction was jubilant. "That's it!" she called out. Jack perked up instantly. "If we can slow our descent, we might survive. We need to fire the reactor!"

"Like dodging Multo?"

"Yes!" _Couldn't the Marshal have used_ _ **that**_ _example?_ "No!" she amended. "We have a very narrow window to fire the reactor; we'll need more power, and a longer burn." She didn't need to tell him that both those requirements narrowed their window even further. "It probably won't work," she confessed. "The only Jaeger to ever channel this kind of power was Whiskey Blue, and they didn't survive it."

Jack glimpsed that night again as it flashed across Sam's mind. While she struggled to connect with Jonas, she'd watched Whiskey stumble and falter, all of Vala's lithe presence gone. Mitchell wrapped his arms around Athos alone, and fired his reactor to full burn. He hadn't meant to survive. That didn't mean they wouldn't.

"Let's do it," Jack affirmed. He focused on his HUD, and the numbers flashing there. Carter read his intention and it was her mind that made sense of the tumbling numbers. Together, they spread Banshee's limbs to create more air resistance. It gave them just enough room to breathe. "We're upside down," he told Carter unnecessarily. She already knew, and tapped a command into her console.

Banshee's ankle rockets fired, driving her legs forward until they were lateral. Jack tried not to visualize the belly flop they were about to execute. His efforts were rewarded by a brief flash of mirth from Carter, who continued to reroute power, first from their auxiliary systems, then from navigation, then from life support. Jack swallowed his instinctive protest. Their suits had enough air to last them the fall- they wouldn't need it if they failed.

They were cutting it close. Way too close. Against Multo, Carter had been sure. Now her heart thundered as loud as his, uncertainty cutting away at her mental calculations. She wasn't confident they'd survive, even if they didn't blow themselves up. Jack swallowed, fighting the urge to vomit. One of Jack's instructors at the Academy, a retired Ranger, had instructed them to do one thing when faced with certain defeat. " _Go out in style and take one of them with you."_ They certainly met both those requirements. It didn't mean Jack was prepared to kick the bucket.

Their alarms reached an all new octave. "That ground is coming up awful fast," Jack remarked with less panic than he felt.

"Almost done," Sam grunted, not sparing a glance for the blinking numbers showing their steep descent. He felt her count down the seconds as the ground rushed up to meet them, fighting against the instinct to fire now now _now_. Jack struggled to keep his own panic at bay, but as the seconds ticked by, the need to act grew stronger.

"Sam…"

"I know," she uttered, still counting.

Jack inhaled, his fingers itching. "Sam."

"I know!"

"SAM!"

"NOW!"

The connpod lurched as Bella suddenly decelerated. It wasn't enough. The force of impact caused Jack to black out. When the world came back an instant later, he was hanging in his harness. He checked his readings instinctively. They struggled to come back online, flickering in distress. He instead turned his attention to his copilot, who trembled in her harness.

"Sam?" Her breaths came in sharp wheezes over the headset, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Spasms wracked her entire frame. "Sam!"

Carter's eyes sparkled when she turned to face him, soundless guffaws pulling from her lips as she laughed. "It worked!" she gasped, struggling to breathe. "I can't- I can't believe it!"

"Banshee!" Pentecost's voice squawked across the radio. Jack looked around the connpod, and found that power was slowly returning. They'd fared better than Sam had anticipated. "Banshee, respond!"

Still giggling, Carter keyed the comms while Jack stared at her in disbelief. "Yes, sir! We're both okay!" She laughed again, unperturbed by Jack's speechlessness. "Anything's possible in a Jaeger!"

Jack could almost hear Pentecost roll his eyes and for once Jack was right there with him. "Maniac," he accused, dumbfounded. "My copilot's a maniac!"

Carter laughed again. When she ran out of mirth, she coughed and together they pushed Banshee back to their feet. Their headsets buzzed, unnaturally shrill. Sam looked at Jack, her eyes wide. "Is that…?"

"Screaming," he finished. He tapped his console to pull up the radar. The display glowed, but flickered. He saw nothing, but couldn't confirm the sensors weren't damaged. "I don't see Baubas."

"LOCCENT, we do not have a location on Baubas! Please advise!" Sam requested. "LOCCENT? Manhattan! Does anybody read?"

"Ranger Carter," the Marshal's voice came again. The sound of screaming came through loud behind him, as though it were coming from the control room itself.

"Sir, we don't have a location on Baubas-"

"Check your shoes, Banshee," came the chuckled response. "You landed right on top of the bastard."

A horrified look crossed Sam's face, even as Manhattan whooped over the comms, joining the din. "That was un-friggin'-believable! Banshee! You sons of bitches!"

"Looks like the PPDC has another legend in the making-"

"Banshee! Check out the news feed!" Tendo called.

Sam obeyed and soon the newscast was glowing against the bulkhead. For once the talking heads were absent, and footage of their fall was being shown. Banshee was a meteor, a lump of fire streaking for the ground, making Jack glad that their viewscreen had shorted out on them. Banshee slammed the ground in a plume of smoke and debris, the camera view shaking violently at the impact. The studio was silent for several long minutes, until the smoke cleared, revealing Banshee's batter form as she climbed to her feet. The feed erupted into applause, wild cheering.

"Belladonna Banshee survived!" The anchor told them exuberantly. "We're now receiving confirmation that the kaiju is terminated and both of Banshee's pilots are unharmed!"

"Unharmed," Jack scoffed. "Does she not know how hard I banged my elbow back there?" He was rewarded with the sensation of Carter smiling.

"Banshee is piloted by newcomer Jack O'Neill and renowned pilot Samantha Carter, who has been out of the field for the past two years following the massive loss of two San Diego Jaegers on May 1st, 2026. The reason behind her hiatus is unknown, but I think we can safely say that she hasn't lost her touch."

Jack looked at Sam, concerned the reminder of May Day would dampen her spirits. Instead she seemed thoughtful- he couldn't be sure she'd even heard the broadcast.

"Samantha Carter first made waves when she became the youngest pilot in the PPDC in 2021. Only a short month later she and then-copilot Jonas Hanson were deployed against Kaiju codenamed Shredder off the coast of Long Beach, stopping the kaiju before it made landfall. At the time-"

"You two are heroes!" Tendo shouted. In the background, Jack could hear the cheers of celebration in LOCCENT, probably the entire rest of the base as well. "You're goddamn crazy, but you're heroes!"

The Marshal cut in, his voice a solid counterpoint to the others' enthusiasm. "Dust yourselves off and get back to the Shatterdome. Good work, Rangers."


	20. Chapter 20

**Warnings: None**

* * *

Banshee took the long way back to base. The loss of the three helo's to Zhen meant it would have taken longer for Manhattan's carriers to ferry Manhattan to the Shatterdome and then come back for Banshee than it would for them to just make the trek back themselves. When they first set out, Jack hadn't worried. The seas were relatively calm, and though Bella was damaged, they were mobile.

Soon, though, it became apparent that not everything was as well as he thought. The long slog through the waves was laborious. Banshee's left leg seemed to lose functionality as they pushed further along the coast, eventually reducing them to a slow limp. Then, slowly, Sam's breathing grew labored. Jack didn't notice until she was almost gasping.

"Whoa," he called, drawing to a stop. Sam didn't protest, instead bending slightly in her harness to catch her breath. "Talk to me, Sam. What's wrong?"

She lifted her head, hiding a grimace. "It's nothing. Just… need a breather."

Jack readily agreed to a break, but the grey pallor of her skin under the light of her helmet hinted she wasn't being entirely truthful with him. She favored her left side, the same side that had taken the brunt of Zhen's teeth when it chomped through the hull. He tried to find the source of her pain through the drift, but their previous clarity was now muddled, hidden. "Sam… don't shut me out, okay? If you're injured, I need to know."

Her eyes clenched shut. "Maybe some cracked ribs," she allowed. "It's okay."

"We can wait for a pick up-"

"No! No, it's fine. I can push through until we get back to base." To prove it, she straightened, moving forward even before he could reactivate his own console. "Let's get moving."

Jack sighed, but didn't push. "Okay."

For a bit, Sam seemed to do okay. But as they neared the last few miles, her breathing grew labored again. Jack kept his mouth shut, but couldn't any longer when he felt her stumble. "All right, stop! Let's just…" Her pants were moans now. He looked over in a panic, and saw her face creased with pain, all pretense gone. "Sam?"

"My- My left leg is numb." Her voice was hoarse. She hissed a second later, and her control slipped. A shaft of blinding pain arced down Jack's side, and echo of her own agony. He yelped in surprise, and a second later it was gone, sucked back into Sam's conscious.

"That's not numb. And it's not a busted rib," he accused.

"I think my suit-" she paused for breath, "think my suit shorted out." Jack immediately craned his head to try and get a look at the outside of her drivesuit for evidence of damage, but he didn't have the angle, and Sam was in no condition to contort in order to provide him one.

Jack wordlessly keyed up a channel to LOCCENT. "Control, this is Banshee. Come in."

There was a crackle, then a pop as Tendo switched his mic on. "We read you, go ahead."

"We think Sam's drivesuit took some damage. We're going to need medical waiting as soon as we dock."

A pause followed. "Understood. Doctor Frasier is on standby. Manhattan's convoy just refueled. Do you require a pick up?"

Jack glanced at Sam for confirmation, but her head was bowed, her breaths heavy. Jack keyed open the comm.

"Wait," Carter gasped. Jack clicked off, and met her gaze once more. Her eyes were creased with pain, but clear. "I can make it."

"Sam…"

"If we ask for a pick up, I'll be medevacked first. I'm not going to be flown back on a stretcher."

Jack shook his head. "I understand where you're coming from, I really do, but…"

"The world is looking at us, Jack." The sound of his name on her lips sent a jolt of energy through him. "If we're evacked they're going to know something is wrong, and that will be the story they tell tonight." She paused to catch her breath. "We need the win."

Jack took a measured breath, long and steady. Sam wasn't okay, and as her partner his instinct was to put her needs before his own. But what could he do when she placed the needs of the country above all? "Are you sure?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes."

Jack considered his options, then finally gave a nod of his own. Sam opened the channel to LOCCENT. "We're going to keep moving, LOCCENT. We should reach the Shatterdome in the next 15 minutes."

"Understood. Pilots will remain prepped if you change your mind."

It took closer to thirty minutes for the Shatterdome to come into view, and by that time Sam operated under sheer will power. Jack fell into the role of navigator- Sam's eyes remained clenched shut as she struggled to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Jack's heart raced as he felt the familiar drag of resistance- not incompatibility, he assured himself, just exhaustion. Sam could barely walk. When they stepped onto the crawler that was waiting for them, she collapsed in her harness. Every breath tore jaggedly through their neural bridge, punctuated by soft whimpers through clenched teeth.

When they were fully docked, the hatch opened almost immediately. "Do NOT disengage," Frasier ordered sternly as soon as she stepped inside. Jack froze, before realizing she meant Carter, who was weakly reaching for the keypad to do just that. Frasier's team filed in behind their boss with a readied stretcher, and wheeled the bed into place. "Sam, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," came the breathless affirmation.

"What hurts?"

"Side." Sam's right arm was clamped across her middle, bracing the afflicted side. "Leg went numb about an hour ago."

Janet reached up to flash a penlight in Carter's eyes, making her flinch after so long in the shadowy interior of Banshee's connpod. "Same side?" Sam nodded. Janet pocketed her penlight and stepped back. "Okay, Sam, we're going to release you right onto the gurney, all right? Just relax, and let us do the work."

Jack stepped away from his own interface, eager to help, but Janet's glare encouraged him to keep his distance. Sam nodded her understanding, but didn't relax. She tensed as Janet reached for the keypad. After a few keystrokes, the harness tilted back, as though to load her into the life pod, but halted when Sam was horizontal. The stretcher was ratcheted up underneath her; when Janet keyed the harness release, Sam settled onto the mattress with a grunt of pain.

"Janet," she gasped. "The suit…"

"Ranger O'Neill alerted us that it may have shorted out. We'll know for sure when we remove it in the infirmary." Janet paused. "Sam? What's wrong, honey?"

"I- Hurts…"

Janet moved closer to the gurney. "Would lying on your side help?" Sam nodded jerkily. Janet motioned her team into place. "Okay. On my mark- 3, 2, 1, mark." three pairs of hands pulled the sheet under Sam up and over, gently turning Sam on her uninjured side. Almost immediately, Sam's breath grew easier, though the grimace never left her face. "How's that feel?" Janet checked. Sam could only nod. "Let's go," Janet ordered, and the med team moved out.

Jack trotted to keep pace with the gurney, careful to remain in Sam's line of vision, though her eyes mostly remained clenched shut against the pain. "Hey." Sam's eyes opened blearily. Pain and exhaustion had taken their toll. "I'm right here." She nodded, the silent gratitude plain for him to see. "When you feel better, we can discuss the importance of telling your copilot when you're hurt."

Sam's lips quirked into a brief smirk, her eyes rolling as she closed them again. "Yes, _mom_."

Jack chuckled. She'd be okay. He remained convinced of that until Frasier's team finally peeled away the layers of her drivesuit. The outer armor showed no signs of damage, but when he saw the melted nanowiring of the circuitry layer he muffled a curse. Half a dozen blowouts charred the synthetic fabric, and he suspected that he'd find corresponding wounds in Banshee's hull were Zhen's teeth had punctured the plating. A nurse carefully unzipped the circuitry layer. Gloved fingers began to gently peel it away from Sam's skin, but froze when Sam screamed.

"HEY!" Jack bellowed, taking a menacing step towards the nurse, who dropped the circuitry suit instantly. "Be careful!"

"Ranger O'Neill!" Frasier barked right back, placing herself between him and the gurney. She regarded him for a short moment, then pointed towards the door. "Out."

"What?!" Jack shook his head. "No. No way-"

"That was an order, Ranger."

"She's my copilot!"

Janet didn't move an inch. "And _my_ patient. I will not have you hampering her treatment. Not to mention you need to undergo your own evaluation as well. I wouldn't be surprised if you had an injury or two lurking in there as well after that fall."

"But-"

" _Go,_ " the doctor asserted. "Or I will have you removed." Jack took a single step back. She couldn't think he would actually hurt Sam… Dr. Frasier softened a moment later. "Once I have fully evaluated Sam's condition I will personally inform you of her condition, with her permission. Until then, I want you to get evaluated yourself, then stay there to get some rest. Is that understood?"

Jack swallowed. "Yes, ma'am." Still he paused. "Can I let her know…?"

"She's already unconscious," she told him bluntly. When he paled, she lifted a hand a reassurance. "It's a blessing in this case, I promise you. Please, Ranger. Let us give her the care she needs."

Jack nodded, then left with one last look at his partner's back as an orderly guided him out. His own evaluation- while more intensive than usual- took only half an hour, by which point there had been no update from Frasier. Jack thought he'd be shooed away as soon as his physical was complete, but true to the doctor's word, he received a set of scrubs and a bed to sleep on. He scoffed at the idea: he couldn't possibly sleep when Sam was in trouble. Contrary to his intentions, however, Frasier shook him awake some time later.

"How is she?" he asked immediately.

"Sam's going to be fine," Janet assured him. She picked up on his skepticism. "When her circuitry layer shorted, it generated extreme heat that fused the fabric of the suit to her skin. That's why she reacted like she did when April tried to remove the layer."

"H-How? The suits are supposed to be insulated so that _doesn't_ happen!"

Janet nodded. "In a way, they did their job. The suit drew away the electrical current, so the small blessing is that she wasn't electrocuted. But I agree that such a short is unusual. I've already surrendered the suit to Marshal Pentecost for further investigation. Hopefully we'll know more soon."

Her tone darkened at the prospect of tampering, sparking a deep suspicion in Jack. If sabotage was a possibility, only one person on base hated Sam enough to tamper with her drivesuit. Doctor Frasier continued. "The numbness in her left leg was the result of some swelling around her sciatic nerve. It should resolve itself in the next few days, but we're keeping her at least overnight for observation."

Jack nodded. "Can I stay with her? I promise I won't get in the way."

"Give us a few more minutes to get her settled and sedated first," Frasier acquiesced. "Removing the suit was a difficult process. I'm putting you both on stand down until her burns heal and the swelling goes down. I anticipate a full recovery, but it's likely that she'll have more pain before it gets better."

Jack nodded his understanding. When a nurse came to get him some time later, he was startled by how shaky his own legs were. The trek back to base had been more of a strain than he'd thought. Or maybe this was how most pilots felt after a battle- and a fall from upper atmo. When he was shown into Sam's infirmary room, he found she was already asleep. Propped on her side by a few pillows, her face was slack, proof that the meds in her IV were doing their job. A fold-out chair had been provided for him at the side of her bed, which he settled into with a muffled groan. A second bed sat a few feet away, already made up with crisp sheets. While he had no intent of using it, Jack realized now that they understood what it meant to be a Jaeger pilot. He wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to keep what he had. Bella… Carter… He was theirs, for as long as they'd have him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Warnings: None**

* * *

Marshal Stacker Pentecost sighed, dropping his pen in resignation. The defeat of Zhen and Baubas had generated far more paperwork than a victory had any right to. On top of that, the city sought compensation for the substantial damage cause by Banshee's free fall from the upper atmosphere. Governments called him day and night in concern over Baubas' targeting of the civilian shelters. Less than twenty of the 275 people in that shelter had survived the attack, and many now rightfully wondered whether any place was still safe from the kaiju. The short answer, Pentecost knew, was no. It was was simply a matter of relativity, and soon even that distinction would be a thing of the past. Eventually even the inland areas would be victim to kaiju attacks.

One good thing had come of Banshee's spectacular win in L.A. The military leaders of the constituent nations of the PPDC had been reminded of the importance of the Jaeger program, and Pentecost's sources indicated that funds would soon be funneling cash into the developmental program to get the other Jaegers up to Banshee's speed. If there were still any holdouts- and Pentecost assumed there was- then the interview requests covering his desk would soon sway them.

Every major news source on the planet wanted to speak to San Diego's brightest new stars. If Stacker played his cards right, he could cash in the international adoration for research dollars. However, if he was too heavy-handed, he could sour the board even more, in which case no amount of popular support could make a damned bit of difference. Sam's injuries had given him some time to strategize, but now that she was on the mend, he would need to act soon.

As though summoned by his thoughts, a knock sounded at his door. He rubbed the exhaustion from his eyes and folded his hands atop his desk, not bothering to feign busy work. He could recognize that knock in his sleep.

"Enter," he called. On cue, the hatch opened to admit a familiar face.

"Is this a bad time, sir?" Ranger Samantha Carter asked. She held herself stiffly in the doorway, one hand remaining on the door jamb to brace herself.

"Not at all, Ranger," he assured her. He beckoned her in and waved her towards one of the two chairs facing his desk. "It's good to see you back on your feet."

Sam closed the door behind her, and limped to the seat he offered. "Thank you, sir, but I think my feet disagree with you."

When she sat, she listed to the right, taking her weight off her left hip. Under her shirt, Pentecost could see the bulk of several bandages along her side. The investigation of her circuitry suit had revealed a flaw in the manufacture of the suit, an error that their safety inspections had not known to look for. Though relieved there was no dark motive at play, it was sheer luck that she'd escaped with little more than some heat burns and a pinched sciatic nerve.

"I'm sorry to barge in on you, Marshal," she continued softly. "I know you're busy."

"There's always time for you, Sam."

It had been a long time since he had eschewed their usual formality. In truth, her withdrawal after the May Day massacre had been a leading factor in his decision to err on the side of military formality. With the base turning sour against her- fueled largely by the whispering of her former copilot- any perceived indiscretion between them would only erode her standing further. When Sam didn't reach out, it seemed she had come to the same conclusion and sought to protect herself as best she could. He realized the truth too late; her isolation had little to do with whispers, and all to do with the trauma she'd suffered. By the time Pentecost could try to rectify his mistake, Sam's walls were complete and impenetrable. Only in the past few months had she deviated even slightly from military decorum, and this was her first time seeking him out.

"I wish I had been able to spend more time with you in the infirmary," he continued. "However it looked like you were well taken care of." Ranger O'Neill had steadfastly declined to leave Carter's infirmary bed. Watching Banshee's plunge to Earth had nearly stopped his heart. He didn't know whether her pilots had heard his reminder of Whiskey Blue's gambit; he didn't put it past Carter to have made the connection herself. The comms had fizzled out as the bright streak of flame plummeted towards the Earth while watched, helpless. That they both survived seemed too good to be true- O'Neill's frantic call to LOCCENT had only served to confirm what Pentecost already suspected.

"How are things between you and Ranger O'Neill?" he asked.

Every time he'd tried to sit alone with Sam, even in the small hours of the morning, the young pilot had been there. Sometimes dozing, oftentimes simply watching Sam sleep. It was the devotion Pentecost expected to see in a Ranger, a true copilot. Those nights Pentecost never interacted with the younger man, and yet had learned all he needed to know. He liked O'Neill, for all his naivety. Evidently Sam liked him as well, as a soft smile curled the corners of her mouth up.

"Good, sir." She nodded, as though confirming it to herself than him. "He's a good pilot, and- I trust him." Her smile faltered, as her eyes fell to study her hands. "I didn't think I'd find that again."

"Anything is possible in a Jaeger." Sam blinked, giving him a startled glance. Pentecost grinned. "You didn't think I missed your father's words coming over the comms, did you?"

On cue, Sam's smile warmed again. "No, sir."

"What can I do for you, Sam?" he asked, getting back to business. "Unless you really did stop by to shoot the wind with an old man."

Suddenly, Sam looked uncomfortable. All trace of mirth evaporated, and her gaze fell to her hands. Silence stretched awkwardly between them, just long enough for Pentecost to regret changing the subject so soon. It had almost felt normal, just for a moment. "Sam…"

"I'm pressing charges," she blurted, cheeks reddening. Trembling fingers tightened on the tops of her thighs. "Against Jonas."

Pentecost didn't need the clarification. His blood ran cold with a familiar rage, one he was well versed in controlling. When a cold and hollow Samantha Carter confessed to him two years ago what had happened the night of April 30th, he wanted nothing more than to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for Hanson's crimes. Only Sam's dedication to the Shatterdome, and her correct assertion that the PPDC needed Banshee in action, had stayed his hand at the time. But each time he sent Banshee out with Manhattan Bombshell (Hanson was never compatible enough for Banshee to drop solo), that dark, thwarted voice of vengeance hoped Hanson wouldn't return.

Now Pentecost stood, and came around his desk to sit in the second visitor chair, swiveling it to face Sam directly. Her gaze remained glued to her lap, until he reached out to cover her hands with one of his. The timid eyes that blinked at him were almost unrecognizable. He had yet to see the Sam he'd lost 2 years ago, but she was no longer the shell who haunted the halls of engineering.

"It won't be easy," he warned. He didn't want to discourage her- Hanson deserved prosecution and so much more- but she had to know; whoever investigated would not be kind to her, not three years after the fact. "They're going to ask questions- difficult, uncomfortable questions."

She nodded. "I know."

"And I will be with you every step of the way," he assured her. "You know that too." She nodded again, this time furtive, ducking her chin to hide the emotion brimming in her eyes.

"That's why I wanted to tell you first," she said, her voice thick and gravelly. "I'm not going to tell them that you knew."

Pentecost pulled back in surprise at the unexpected declaration. He shook his head no. "Any shred, any hint of a lie would jeopardize the entirety of your testimony. I won't let you do that, and there's no need. We didn't do anything wrong."

"If anyone knew that you knew, and did nothing… they would question the quality of your leadership."

"You didn't report it, Sam. You confided in me, as a family friend. We were both out of uniform. They have no grounds to question my leadership." Pentecost tightened his grip on her fingers, and was relieved to feel her return the pressure. "Tell them the truth, Sam. You deserve that much."

She reached up to scrub the heel of her hand across her eyes, drying the tears gathering there. Pentecost watched her eyes travel to the framed photograph set on the small ledge under the barred window, and stay there. His gaze joined hers, and he felt the familiar stab of loss at the sight of his younger self standing proud beside Jacob Carter, with Coyote Tango's helm just visible behind them. Sam had held the camera that day, for the last picture they would ever have of her father.

"I miss him," she whispered, her voice cracking.

Pentecost nodded, swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat. They hadn't spoken of Jake in years, long before May Day. "He would have been proud of you even if you were in janitorial," he said, his own voice suddenly rough. "But he always knew you were born for the Jaeger program. Even back then, you had a head for the engineering that he couldn't match. If he could see the way you pilot…"

Watching Sam walk away from the pilot's chair after May Day had been the hardest for Pentecost to see. After spending the better part of her childhood on base, learning from engineers and technicians and the many pilots who took a shine to her, Sam's instructors at the academy testified that she'd taken to piloting like a fish to water. It came to her as naturally as breathing. To stand silently as she relinquished Bella- her pride and joy- to her attacker… Pentecost had done so without a word, and it remained the worst day of his life, including the day he felt Jake die in the harness next to him.

That something, or someone, had convinced her to return to the connpod was a miracle, and one he intended to thank O'Neill for, one day. Pentecost hoped reporting her rape, and seeing justice be done, would relieve her burden just that much more, and make piloting that much easier for her again.

"All my life, I just wanted what you and Dad had," Sam confessed. "I thought I found it with Jonas, and when- when I was wrong, I thought it was something I wouldn't ever get to have."

Pentecost met her gaze. Deep, familiar sorrow darkened her eyes, but in them he found more of the old Sam than he'd seen in years. "That's changed?"

He knew his answer even before she nodded. He'd seen the numbers. Her compatibility with O'Neill was off the charts. She had what he'd found with Jake- in spades. "I think so." She sniffed again, and this time her smile came with a small exhale. "Getting there. This is the first step, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Yes, it is."

They sat in a companionable silence for a while more. Pentecost savored every second he could- it had been too long since they'd sat together. He waited until Sam cleared her throat and made to rise.

"I shouldn't keep you any longer, sir." When she was steady on her feet Pentecost let his hand fall away from her fingers, returning their professional buffer to its place. Sam gave him a close-lipped smile that, while not effusive, lacked the grim lines that had creased her features for so long. "Thank you for your time."

"You're welcome, Ranger. I'll notify you once the details of the investigation are confirmed." He returned to his seat behind the desk, then paused when Sam hit the doorway. "Sam."

She turned, one hand on the doorknob. "Sir?"

"Welcome back."

When she left, her smile shone as brilliantly as the sun.

FIN

* * *

A/N: I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the subplot in this story. I really struggled with the idea of including the assault, because I was afraid it would feed into the idea that a woman has to suffer to be considered strong. In the end, I decided that this was the story that needed to be told. Given the political climate these days, and the ever-increasing reports of unpunished rape, I needed to do a story that approached sexual assault with respect for survivors, and included some of the healthy conversations I wish more media would tackle.

To learn more about how you can help support a survivor of sexual assault, please visit RAINN dot org for additional resources.


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